SEAVER 
HACK 


UCSB  LIBRARY 


MEMOIR 


OF 


HIRAM   WITHINGTON, 


SELECTIONS 


SERMONS   AND  CORRESPONDENCE. 


BOSTON : 
WM.  CROSBY  AND  H.  P.  NICHOLS, 

111  WASHINGTON  STREET. 

1849. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1849,  hy 

WM.  CROSBY  &  H.  P.  NICHOLS,      • 
in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


CAMBRIDGE  : 
MET CALF     AND     COMPANY, 

PRINTERS   TO   THE   UNIVERSITY. 


THIS  Memoir  has  been  prepared  at  the  request  of  the 
Worcester  Association  of  Ministers,  to  which  Mr.  Withing- 
ton  belonged.  In  preparing  it,  my  design  has  been  to  give 
to  his  friends  and  his  people  as  faithful  an  image  as  can 
be  preserved,  of  the  character  of  one  who,  as  friend  and  as 
pastor,  was  equally  esteemed  and  beloved.  For  the  readiness 
with  which  material  has  been  furnished  me,  I  return  my 
warmest  gratitude ;  and  for  the  freedom  with  which  it  is 
used  I  trust  that  no  apology  is  needed,  and  that  the  delica- 
cies and  proprieties  of  personal  feeling  have  not  been  over- 
looked. 

In  fulfilling  this  service  of  affection  to  the  memory  of  a 
very  dear  and  honored  friend,  I  have  endeavoured  to  present 
what  might  give  the  most  complete  view  of  his  style  of 
thought  and  the  character  of  his  mind.  I  have  not  felt  my- 
self authorized  to  withhold  anything  essential  to  express 
distinctly  his  opinions  on  all  subjects  of  special  interest  to 
him.  As  part  of  his  mental  habit,  his  friends  are  entitled  to 
expect  a  record  of  them ;  and,  as  the  judgments  of  a  truth- 
ful and  conscientious  mind,  they  are  not  wholly  without  their 
independent  value.  • 

Trusting  that  this  little  volume  may  be  as  acceptable  to 
others  as  its  preparation  has  been  grateful  to  myself,  I  sub- 
mit it,  with  the  highest  respect,  to  those  who  have  honored 
me  with  the  charge  of  superintending  it. 

J.  H.  A. 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  April,  1849. 


MEMOIR 


MEMOIR. 


HIRAM  WITHINGTON  was  born  in  Dorchester, 
Massachusetts,  July  29,  1818.  He  entered  the 
Theological  School  in  Cambridge  in  the  summer 
of  1841  ;  was  settled  as  pastor  over  the  First  Church 
in  Leominster,  December  25,  1844  ;  and  died, 
"  among  his  kindred,  and  at  his  father's  house," 
October  30,  1848. 

It  is  rare  that  a  life  so  brief  and  fragmentary  has 
left  an  impression  so  entire,  harmonious,  and  distinct. 
The  strong  devotional  tendency  which  he  manifested 
from  his  earliest  years,  the  exceeding  afFectionate- 
ness  of  his  disposition,  making  him  singularly  dear 
to  those  who  knew  him  personally,  his  frankness  and 
simplicity  of  manner,  and  the  transparent  sincerity 
of  his  judgments  of  himself,  the  readiness  and  good 
faith  with  which  he  offered  sympathy  or  counsel,  the 


4  MEMOIR. 

I 

beauty  of  spirit  which  was  maintained  and  matured 
during  the  deep  and  sorrowful  experience  of  his  last 
•  few  years,  and  the  innocent  yet  very  free  and  mirth- 
ful humor  which  so  tempered  the  elements  of  his 
character,  and  made  him  as  cheerful  a  companion 
as  he  was  cordial  and  trusty  friend,  have  all  com- 
bined to  strengthen  and  deepen  that  impression,  and 
to  make  us  desire  that  some  memorial  might  be  pre- 
served to  us  of  his  character  and  his  life. 

Of  his  earlier  years  hardly  any  record  seems  to 
have  been  preserved,  except  in  the  affectionate 
reminiscence  of  a  few  friends,  and  one  or  two  pass- 
ing allusions  in  his  correspondence  ;  and  his  outward 
course  was  the  uneventful  one  of  a  teacher,  student, 
and  pastor.  So  that  his  biography  reduces  itself 
almost  entirely  to  the  inward  history  and  experience 
of  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life  ;  and  the  materials 
for  it  must  be  gathered  from  that  delicate  border- 
ground  between  what  is  personal  and  impersonal  of 
his  private  and  confidential  correspondence,  which 
has  so  much  more  to  gratify  our  sympathy  than  our 
curiosity. 

The  few  traces  we  have  of  his  school-boy  days 
show  the  same  traits,  in  the  main,  which  we  find  more 
fully  developed  afterwards.  He  was  amiable  and 


MEMOIR. 


gentle,  a  favorite  pupil,  and  especially  "  remarkable 
as  a  good  reader,"  —  never  among  the  rude  and 
boisterous.  When  quite  a  child,  his  friends  were 
often  amused  at  the  grave  and  mature  tone  of  his 
conversation.  As  a  proof  of  early  decision  and  ma- 
turity of  character,  he  was  "  often  left  with  the  entire 
charge  of  the  school  for  a  day  at  a  time,  and  every 
thing  would  go  on  quietly  and  in  an  orderly  manner." 
This  was  before  he  was  fourteen.  A  year  later,  he 
was  forward  in  organizing  a  temperance  society  and 
debating  club  among  the  boys,  and  indefatigable  in 
getting  up  a  library  for  it;  "calling  upon  almost 
everybody  in  Dorchester,  and  the  upper  part  of 
Roxbury."  In  spite  of  his  general  sedateness, 
among  his  intimate  friends  he  was  full  of  anecdote 
and  fun,  and  had  an  irresistible  propensity  for  rep- 
artee. "  He  delighted  in  telling  humorous  stories, 
ludicrous  incidents,  and  in  repeating  poetry,  of  which 
he  was  very  fond."  Stopping  once  in  a  store  on 
the  Neck,  he  overheard  some  one  boasting  jovially  of 
his  luck  in  not  having  fallen  once  on  the  ice  all  that 
winter.  "  You  know,  Sir,"  says  Hiram,  "  the  Bi- 
ble says  the  wicked  shall  stand  in  slippery  places." 
Withal  he  was  troubled  with  a  certain  diffidence 
and  hesitancy  of  speech,  which  it  cost  him  no  small 


O  MEMOIR. 

pains  to  overcome.  u  He  had  always  lived  at  home, 
attended  school  regularly,  and  been  left  to  follow  his 
own  bent  out  of  school.  He  was  very  fond  of  read- 
ing, he  was  also  very  fond  of  the  beautiful.  He 
loved  solitary  walks  ;  he  loved  poetry.  As  a  boy, 
he  was  very  little  understood,  and  found  almost  no 
sympathy.  The  remarkable  cheerfulness  by  which 
he  was  distinguished  in  after  years  was  almost  en- 
tirely acquired.  When  a  boy  and  approaching  man- 
hood, he  had  a  tendency  to  sadness,  which  was  only 
overcome  by  hard  struggling." 

Till  he  was  fourteen  years  old,  he  attended  a 
common  school,  and  afterwards,  for  two  years,  an 
academy.  At  the  age  of  sixteen,  he  "  came  down 
to  Hanson,  and  set  up  his  too  green  and  premature 
manhood,"  as  teacher  in  a  public  school.  In  this 
he  was  very  successful.  A  year  after  this,  we  find 
him  teaching  in  one  of  the  grammar-schools  at  Dor- 
chester. At  this  period  he  u  dates  the  beginning 
of  his  religious  life"  ;  and  most  warmly  and  grate- 
fully he  responded  to  the  influence  exerted  by  his 
pastor.*  In  all  the  traces  that  remain  of  this  period, 
and  till  we  know  him  more  familiarly,  the  religious 
feeling  is  uppermost  or  exclusive.  To  the  labors  of 

«  Rev.  Nathaniel  Hall. 


MEMOIR.-  7 

the  week  in  the  public  school,  he  added  the  more 
congenial  labors  of  the  Sabbath  in  the  Sunday 
school.  "  He  bore  his  full  share  in  the  deeper 
discussions  at  the  teachers'  meetings,  and  when  in 
his  turn  he  came  to  give  the  general  lesson  to  the 
children  in  the  school,  so  attractive  was  his  little 
sermon,  so  simple  and  beautiful,  delivered  in  a  tone 
so  impressive  and  sweet,  that  they  would  cluster 
around  him  and  hang  upon  his  words,  enjoying  at 
once  the  charm  of  his  stories  and  the  music  of  his 
voice."  *  These  are  the  first  distinct  impressions  we 
can  gain  of  his  mind  and  character,  —  in  perfect  har- 
mony with  what  was  the  ground-tone  of  his  after  life. 
Being  small  in  person  and  gentle  in  disposition, 
he  seems  to  have  found  the  care  of  teaching  no  light 
burden.  It  was  not  in  him  to  rule  a  school,  so 
much  as  to  win  and  instruct  single  minds.  In  the 
course  of  a  half-pathetic,  half-humorous  exaggera- 
tion of  the  miseries  of  his  condition,  he  says,  (Au- 
gust, 1838):  —  "  The  heat  of  the  weather  and  the 
labors  of  my  profession  have  completely  used  me 
up,  so  that  I  have  not  one  spark  of  physical  or  men- 
tal energy  left,  and  might  almost  answer  for  a  defi- 
nition of  nothing.  My  flesh  has  fallen  away,  and  if 

*  Christian  Examiner. 


8  MEMOIR. 

I  go  on  at  this  rate  for  a  short  time  longer,  my 
countenance  will  do  to  '  split  a  harpoon  upon,'  and 
were  I  to  fall  down,  I  should  make  a  noise  like  a 
bundle  of  clothes-pins."  It  is  thus  likely  that,  at 
the  age  of  twenty,  his  constitution  was  already  be- 
coming permanently  injured  by  too  early  and  severe 
labor  ;  and  the  dread  of  this,  probably,  fell  in  with 
his  natural  taste  and  disposition,  and  the  conscious- 
ness of  growing  powers,  to  lead  his  thoughts  to  the 
profession  of  the  ministry. 

His  secret  thoughts  and  wishes  on  this  subject  he 
confided  to  his  pastor,  and  from  him  received  the 
most  encouraging  sympathy.  The  feeling,  being 
cherished  and  not  suppressed,  soon  ripened  into  a 
purpose.  Having  "  picked  up  a  little  Latin  here 
and  there,  and  laid  aside  the  small  income  of  his 
school,"  he  set  his  heart  steadfastly  on  following  up 
the  course  of  a  suitable  education.  "  His  father 
opposed  it  a  good  deal,  —  very  kindly,  but  anxiously. 
It  seemed  to  him  to  be  running  a  great  risk,  —  to  be 
giving  up  a  certainty  for  an  uncertainty,  —  to  be  as- 
piring after  something  beyond  Hiram's  ability  to 
reach  with  any  success,  even  if  he  had  the  means  of 
carrying  him  through  the  preparatory  studies." 

The  strong  purpose  and  the  conscious  power  over- 


MEMOIR. 


ruled  these  scruples,  and  in  the  spring  of  1839  he 
was  established  as  teacher  and  scholar  in  the  family 
of  the  Rev.  Joseph  Allen  of  Northborough.  An  en- 
thusiastic delight  in  country  life,  strong  attachment  to 
pupils  and  friends,  new  intercourse  and  fresh  oppor- 
tunities of  learning,  made  this  a  very  pleasant  season 
with  him.  The  most  interesting  memorial  of  it  is 
the  close  intimacy  he  formed  with  one  of  his  pupils, 
a  fine  and  intelligent  boy  of  fifteen.  "  From  the 
first  night  of  our  intercourse,"  he  says,  "  we  have 
loved  each  other  without  asking  ourselves  why.  It 
was  a  mutual  feeling  of  loneliness,  an  intuitive  per- 
ception of  affinity  of  heart,  of  deep  and  fervent  affec- 
tions, which  first  led  to  our  interest  in  each  other. 
We  have  been  brothers  since."  His  record  of  this 
friendship,  contained  in  a  letter  to  the  same  young 
man,  five  years  later,  in  an  interval  of  the  sickness  of 
which  he  soon  after  died,  is  so  confiding  and  beau- 
tiful, that  I  transcribe  a  considerable  portion  of  it. 

August  13,  1844.  —  "  From  that  first  night  when  we 
lay  folded  in  one  another's  arms,  and  pledged  ourselves 
with  such  happy  tears  to  be  brothers  to  one  another, 
there  has  never  been  a  time  when  I  have  lost  my  inter- 
est in  you,  or  been  forgetful  or  unfaithful  to  that  prom- 
ise. And  I  know  that  your  love  for  me  has  been  true 
and  faithful  too.  But  you  have  not  always  known  the 


10  MEMOIR. 

anxious  thoughts  I  have  had  in  your  behalf.  You  know 
that  speculative  turn  of  mind  you  had  at  Northborough, 
that  love  of  argument,  and  that  skeptical  spirit,  that 
often  raised  doubts  for  the  sake  of  defending  them. 
This  cost  me  many  prayers  and  tears.  You  remember 
that  unhappy  night,  and  that  prayer  in  the  woods  on  the 
following  morning.  I  have  the  whole  of  our  conversa- 
tion written  off,  though  I  never  showed  it  to  any  one. 
Well,  I  saw  that  dangerous  tendency  wearing  away. 
Then  came  a  time  when  you  seemed  most  in  danger  of 
fickleness  and  a  want  of  energy.  Then  followed  a 
period  when  the  world  engrossed  you,  and  your  thoughts 
were  all  of  being  rich ;  and  since  that,  a  time  when  the 
earnestness  of  a  manly  aim  seemed  to  desert  you,  — 
when  your  letters  to  me  grew  cold  and  dull  and  com- 
monplace, and  I  felt  that  I  could  do  you  no  good  by 
writing.  If  you  felt  that  my  interest  in  you  grew  less 
at  that  time,  or  my  love  colder,  be  assured  it  was  not  so.' 
But  for  a  year  or  so  I  have  felt  as  if  you  were  growing 
thoughtful,  earnest,  and  manly.  And  now  I  have  seen 
in  you  that  spirit  of  prayer,  that  religious  sense,  which 
I  have  always  felt  the  want  of  in  you.  And  how  great 
a  blessing  this  is,  I  cannot  express.  I  have  felt  that 
now  there  was  that  perfect  communion  between  us  so 
long  and  so  earnestly  desired.  I  have  prayed  with  you, 
with  the  feeling  that  our  hearts  were  truly  mingling  in 
the  offering  of  praise  and  the  earnest  supplication  for 
God's  blessing.  Dear  Edward,  unspeakably  dearer  to 
me  than  ever  before,  let  me  give  you  a  brother's  affec- 
tionate and  earnest  counsels Be  faithful  to  the 

vows  of  your  sickness.     Live  henceforth  for  God,  and 


MEMOIB.  11 

let  no  selfish  purposes,  no  stubborn  love  of  your  own 
way,  keep  you  from  subjecting  yourself  entirely  to  his 
will.  Read  religious  books,  —  especially  the  guide  of 
the  religious  heart,  the  lest  look,  whose  perusal  you 
counselled  with  such  earnestness  to  others,  when  you 
thought  you  were  speaking  to  them  for  the  last  time. 
Your  influence  over  them  will  be  greater  than  ever  be- 
fore, and  imposes  upon  you  a  new  responsibility.  Strive 
that  they  may  never  see  you  prove  untrue  to  those  coun- 
sels you  gave  them." 

Again  he  writes,  a  few  weeks  later  :  — 

"  Though  there  are  miles  between  us,  it  seems  as  if 
you  were  very  near  to  me,  and  I  think  I  should  still 
write  this,  even  did  I  know  you  were  in  the  world  of 
spirits,  for  still  I  should  have  a  conviction  that  you  would 
know  it,  and  it  would  be  pleasant  to  think  and  write  of 
you.  I  am  sure  when  you  are  gone,  the  world  beyond 
the  grave  will  seem  nearer  to  me,  and  who  can  tell  what 
intercourse  we  may  yet  hold  ?  It  is  a  good  thing,  Ed- 
ward dear,  to  be  out  of  the  reach  of  the  temptations  of 
this  world,  and  to  live  near  to  God  and  in  communion 
with  him,  —  to  keep  ever  in  your  soul,  what  it  is  so  dif- 
ficult to  do  here  on  the  earth,  a  still,  calm  Holy  of  Ho- 
lies, warm  with  the  spirit  of  devotion,  —  a  fair,  bright 
temple  where  the  Infinite  deigns  to  dwell,  —  an  upspring- 
ing  fountain,\vhose  clear  waters  no  turbid  stream  of  earth- 
liness,  no  floating  dust  from  this  world's  atmosphere,  is 
suffered  to  defile.  And  even  now,  as  you  lie  on  your 
bed  of  sickness  and  pain,  I  doubt  not  you  have  many  a 
bright  manifestation  of  God's  presence,  seasons  of  tran- 


12  MEMOIR. 

quillity  and  peace,  which  you  would  not  give  up  for 
any  thing  earthly.  God  be  with  you,  dearest  Edward, 
as  I  know  he  is." 

His  stay  at  Northborough  was  a  little  more  than 
two  years.  During  this  time  his  mind  ripened  and 
expanded  very  rapidly.  His  chief  intellectual  need 
seems  to  have  been,  to  write  and  talk  himself  clear 
on  the  subjects  of  chief  interest  to  him.  His  cor- 
respondence he  especially  values  "  for  the  opportu- 
nity it  gives  of  religious  intercourse"  ;  and  some  of 
his  letters  are  very  long  and  very  earnest  arguments, 
touching  some  point  of  speculative  belief,  —  such  as 
the  presence  of  God  in  the  soul,  and  the  intuitive 
knowledge  of  right  and  wrong.  And  in  this  he  was 
privileged  with  the  intercourse  of  several  near  friends, 
of  singularly  clear  and  confident  faith.  The  frequent 
visiting,  too,  of  sorrow  in  the  families  of  those  he 
loved,  and  the  frequent  exercise  of  his  willing  sym- 
pathy and  consolation,  did  very  much  to  ripen  and 
confirm  his  mind,  and  give  him  the  outfit  of  charac- 
ter and  experience  with  which  he  engaged  in  the 
more  direct  business  of  his  profession. 

For  mental  preparation,  he  says  of  himself,  "  I 
progress  in  my  studies  but  slowly,  yet  with  an  in- 
creasing interest  ;  and  though  with  many  doubts  and 


MEMOIR.  13 

fears,  yet  on  the  whole  with  increasing  encourage- 
ment." Still,  he  yielded  very  much  to  his  natural 
propensity  to  what  was  poetic  and  sentimental  ;  and 
I  do  not  think  he  ever  clearly  traced  the  connection 
between  his  imperfect  knowledge  of  Greek  and  He- 
brew, and  the  ministerial  duties  he  was  looking  for- 
ward to.  Periods  of  distrust  and  misgiving  there 
were,  from  time  to  time  ;  but  on  the  whole  he  put  a 
good  deal  of  confidence  in  that  style  and  method  of 
spiritual  culture  which  accorded  most  with  his  taste 
and  inclination.  Not  without  a  most  serious  sense 
of  the  greatness  of  the  work  in  which  he  was  to 
engage,  yet  with  a  determination  "  to  be  more  of  a 
man  than  a  minister,"  and  never  to  suffer  books  to 
stand  between  him  and  the  living  heart  of  men,  he 
entered  upon  the  course  of  study  in  the  Divinity 
School. 

"  It  was  a  very  happy  part  of  his  life,  these  three 
years.  He  was  in  an  habitually  cheerful  and  busy 
state  of  mind,  enjoying  the  present,  and  full  of  hope 
for  the  future  ;  becoming  more  and  more  conscious 
of  powers  adapted  to  his  chosen  profession,  and 
more  and  more  desirous  of  entering  upon  its  work." 
The  tone  of  his  mind  became  more  firm  and  con- 
fident ;  his  capacity  of  thought  was  quickened  ;  and 


14  MEMOIR. 

during  his  Cambridge  life  there  was  hardly  any 
abatement  to  the  cheerful  courage  with  which  he 
looked  forward  to  his  course.  The  new  discipline 
was  every  way  advantageous  to  him.  Of  his  teach- 
ers he  speaks  in  the  terms  of  affectionate  admira- 
tion natural  to  one  who  is  thrown  for  the  first  time 
into  constant  intercourse  with  men  of  books  and 
thought.  His  habits  were  never  those  of  a  student. 
His  method  of  study  was  to  keep  the  mind  active, 
and  appropriate  the  food  within  reach  ;  to  search  for 
the  materials  of  thinking  and  communication  with 
other  minds,  yet  jealously  guarding  his  own  intel- 
lectual liberty  and  that  of  others  ;  and,  when  occa- 
sion demanded,  to  gather  and  combine  very  rapidly 
what  he  required  for  the  work  in  hand.  Keeping 
the  main  sentiment  strong  and  constant  within,  the 
need  or  the  mood  of  the  moment  made  the  only  rule 
he  practically  acknowledged,  and  the  only  theory  he 
knew  for  fixing  the  moment's  occupation.  Of  the 
danger  of  this  he  was  fully  sensible,  and  he  earnestly 
discouraged  it  in  others  ;  but  with  him  the  habit  had 
been  formed  almost  of  necessity.  And,  with  a  strong 
purpose  at  heart,  to  work  rapidly,  faithfully,  and  to 
the  point  was  of  more  account  to  him  than  to  work 
ever  so  methodically. 


MEMOIH.  15 

This  apparent  want  of  method  was  controlled,  not 
only  by  his  sense  of  duty  and  his  sincere  interest  in 
the  profession  he  had  chosen,  but  by  a  strong  natural 
good  sense,  which  his  sentimental  and  speculative 
tendency  was  never  strong  enough  to  overcome. 
The  position  he  distinctly  chose  was  that  of  media- 
tor or  reconciler  of  the  extreme  opposites  of  thought 
which  he  encountered.  He  was  jealously  sensitive 
of  any  supposed  curb  to  the  freedom  of  speculation, 
ardently  espousing  the  cause  and  prizing  the  friend- 
ship of  the  "heretics"  of  the  day,  and  pleading 
zealously  for  the  right  of  all  men  to  assume  the 
Christian  name,  —  a  topic  of  warm  controversy 
among  us  then  :  and,  on  the  other  hand,  he  charac- 
terizes with  a  lively  impatience  "the  spiritual  mys- 
tics, who  are  half  Quietist  and  half  Antinomian  ; 
who  make  religious  truth  so  very  spiritual,  that  you 
can  neither  see,  nor  touch,  nor  comprehend  it ;  with 
whom  there  are  no  such  things  as  weans,  and  but 
one  end  ;  all  motives  but  the  highest  are  '  diaboli- 
cal' ;  all  actions  not  perfectly  spontaneous  are  false  ; 
all  things,  spiritual  and  material,  are  reducible  to 
'  unity  '  ;  all  questions  and  controversies  are  idle  ; 
and  all  books  are  a  '  humbug.'  "  Natural  good 
sense  and  simple,  unaffected  piety  were  quite  as 


16  MEMOIR. 

prominent  as  any  traits  of  character  in  all  his  inter- 
course with  the  School. 

The  ardent  and  positive  turn  of  his  mind  made 
him  also  exercise  himself  busily  with  his  favorite 
theory  of  a  working  church,  —  connected  as  it  was 
with  a  natural  desire  to  put  it  into  practice.  "  If  I 
have  a  church,"  he  says,  "  it  shall  be  a  society  for 
Christian  action  and  reform  ;  a  peace,  temperance, 
anti-slavery,  charity,  and  anti-wrong  society,  all 
united  in  one."  That  he  meant  something  positive 
by  this  he  testified  afterwards,  by  a  very  zealous  en- 
deavour to  carry  out  his  plan  in  his  parish.  Prac- 
tice is  a  great  check  on  theory  ;  but  as  this  plan  was 
long  maturing,  so  it  was  steadily  persisted  in,  and 
made,  perhaps,  in  his  own  mind,  the  most  distinctive 
and  prominent  part  of  his  life's  labor.  He  gave  full 
expression  to  it  in  the  most  elaborate  essay  of  his 
composition  while  in  the  School. 

And,  so  far  as  he  looked  forward  at  all,  it  was 
always  to  a  country  church.  He  had  a  shrinking 
from  large  towns  ;  u  would  rather  go  on  a  mission 
to  Kamtschatka  "  than  be  shut  out  from  the  con- 
stant presence  of  natural  objects  ;  and,  with  a  tem- 
perament very  susceptible  to  the  influence  of  the 
changing  seasons,  had  a  passionate  fondness  for  the 


MEMOIR.  17 

glad  or  pensive  intercourse  with  nature  that  the  sea- 
sons brought  about.  Spring  was  a  period  of  a  cer- 
tain sadness,  "of  longing  and  unrest"  ;  summer,  of 
extreme  debility  and  depression  ;  autumn,  of  a  sober 
and  quiet  joy.  The  fondness  with  which  he  would 
dwell  on  the  capricious  and  changeful  play  of  natural 
things  is  pleasantly  enough  shown  in  this  trifling  in- 
cident of  a  summer's  walk  :  —  "I  passed  a  large  field 
of  grain.  The  wind  blew  strongly,  and  it  waved 
the  wheat  into  undulating  billows,  like  the  water  of 
the  sea.  Then  it  would  cut  itself  a  pathway,  and 
rush  down  in  one  direction,  a  long  distance  ;  then 
all  of  a  sudden  it  whirred  round  and  round,  and  ran 
zigzag  and  all  manner  of  ways,  like  a  kitten  chasing 
her  own  tail,  or  as  if  it  was  playing  hide  and  seek. 
And  all  the  while  the  little  ears  of  grain  were  knock- 
ing their  heads  together,  whispering  and  laughing  like 
merry  girls  at  a  wedding.  I  stood  and  looked  at  it 
a  long  time."  And  again  he  says,  in  a  soberer 
mood,  —  "I  love  the  autumn  time,  so  gentle  in  its 
approach,  so  silent,  yet  so  certain,  in  its  work  of 
decay  :  and  if  it  brings  with  it  pensive  thoughts  and 
associations,  they  are  not  of  necessity  sad  ones. 
The  perishing  shroud,  which  falls  with  the  autumn 
leaf,  and  with  it  moulders  into  dust,  is  succeeded  by 
2 


18  MEMOIR. 

a  more  glorious  vesture  ;  the  spirit  is  *  unclothed,' 
only  that  it  may  be  '  clothed  upon  '  with  the  unper- 
ishing  and  stainless  garments  of  the  pure  spirits  of 
heaven." 

Among  these  illustrations  of  his  character  and 
feeling  at  this  period  of  his  life,  more  will  necessa- 
rily appear  of  the  sober  than  of  the  sunny  side.  Yet 
it  would  be  too  great  an  omission,  to  leave  out  all 
reference  to  those  other  qualities,  which  made  him 
so  cheerful  and  pleasant  a  companion.  The  free- 
dom and  joyous  activity  of  his  life  here  were  well 
fitted  to  bring  such  qualities  into  play  ;  and  they 
have  left  a  peculiarly  pleasant  impression  on  all  who 
knew  him  then.  They  will  remember  (in  the  words 
of  one  of  his  fellow-students)  "  his  powers  of  con- 
versation, always  racy,  suggestive,  and  valuable  ; 
his  ready  sallies  of  wit ;  his  childlike  mirthfulness 
at  times,  when  he  seemed  to  give  himself  wholly  up 
to  the  exuberance  of  his  feelings  ;  his  quiet  humor  ; 
and,  more  remarkable  than  all,  his  inimitable  power 
of  telling  a  good  story.  It  was  wonderful  what  an 
endless  store  of  anecdotes  he  had  packed  away  in 
his  brain.  No  matter  what  the  subject  of  conver- 
sation, (if  it  were  not  by  its  character  and  dignity 
removed  beyond  the  propriety  of  such  things,)  in- 


MEMOIR. 


stantly  he  would  illustrate  it  by  some  anecdote,  so 
apt,  so  completely  covering  the  point,  that  it  would 
seem  as  if  invented  for  the  purpose,  but  that  it  came 
out  without  the  least  appearance  of  reflection,  and 
he  was  always  ready  to  give  the  name  and  place. 
He  seldom  repeated  the  same  story  ;  and  yet  I  have 
known,  in  the  course  of  an  hour's  conversation,  an 
almost  constant  flow  of  anecdote,  rich,  full  of  hu- 
mor, and  always  so  pat  to  the  point  as  to  excite  the 
irrepressible  laughter  of  all  who  heard." 

Of  this  eager  and  sometimes  wayward  and  extrav- 
agant humor,  it  is  in  vain,  of  course,  to  attempt  to 
preserve  any  tolerable  memorial.  Perfect  goodness 
of  heart  and  enthusiastic  relish  of  a  joke  were  quite 
as  marked  qualities  in  him  as  any  of  a  graver  na- 
ture. He  would  drive  a  play  on  words  to  distrac- 
tion. A  long  and  most  intimate  conversation  with 
him  might  be  half  buried  in  a  running  accompaniment 
of  laughter,  and  consist  sometimes  in  a  perfect  cata- 
ract of  puns  ;  and  withal  he  had  a  strange  and  gro- 
tesque aptness  to  parody  old  lines  of  sober  verse, 
once  making  most  merry  thereby  a  walk  half  way  to 
Dorchester.  Often  did  the  room  ring,  "  in  the  dead 
waste  and  middle  of  the  night,"  with  the  unrelent- 
ing storm  of  fun,  that  his  inextinguishable  humor 


20  MEMOIR. 

would  provoke.  It  is  often  a  thin  dividing  line 
that  separates  mirth  and  wisdom  ;  and  the  gravest 
conference  might  find  itself  unexpectedly  pointed 
with  a  joke.  I  well  remember  the  mingled  glee  and 
solemnity  with  which,  when  I  had  hunted  up  his 
house  after  a  weary  walk,  he  ushered  me  into  the 
smallest  of  cells  that  would  contain  a  single  bed, 
with  the  grave  salutation,  — 

"  Ye  mortal  men,  come  view  the  bed 
Where  you  must  shortly  lie." 

It  was  part  of  his  entire  innocence  that  he  loved 
just  as  well  to  make  a  joke  the  second  time  as  the 
first,  and  to  repeat  his  own,  as  well  as  those  of  oth- 
er people.  He  honestly  thought  they  were  too 
good  to  be  lost,  and  so  they  were.  Some  of  his 
letters  riot  in  this  wanton  and  harmless  humor,  and 
a  few  signs  of  it  will  appear,  here  and  there,  in  the 
intervals  of  his  saddest  experience.  His  friends 
treasured  up  jests  for  him,  like  favorite  dainties  for 
a  child  ;  and  no  one  thing,  perhaps,  did  more  to 
keep  up  the  genial,  open,  childlike  temper  for  which 
he  was  always  remarkable,  and  so  to  harmonize  the 
spirit  of  boyhood  and  maturity,  as  this  happy  and 
buoyant  faculty  of  mirth. 

Not  the  least  noticeable  among  his  traits  of  char- 


MEMOIR.  21 

acter  was  his  frankness  and  readiness  in  giving  coun- 
sel, and  this  point  blank,  as  he  "  always  despised 
a  hint."  Some  indications  of  it  have  been  given 
before,  and  many  more  will  appear  from  time  to 
time.  It  was  no  inconsiderable  ministry  that  he 
had  already  exercised.  The  number  of  persons 
who  were  indebted  to  him  for  sympathy  and  advice 
(probably  at  "critical  periods  of  their  life)  is  truly 
remarkable,  as  shown  in  his  treasured  correspond- 
ence ;  and  not  less  so,  the  warm  and  cordial  return 
he  received  of  their  gratitude  and  confidence.  Some 
years  before,  he  told  a  friend  that  the  number  of  his 
regular  correspondents  was  fourteen,  and  he  must  be 
punctual  in  writing,  as  he  hoped  to  do  them  good. 
So  that,  being  the  repository  of  many  personal  con- 
fessions and  much  spiritual  experience  of  others,  an 
uncommonly  full  and  large  chapter  of  the  human 
heart  was  open  to  his  reading  long  before  he  was 
brought  officially  into  a  position  which  makes  such 
confidence  to  some  more  easy.  All  this,  while  he 
was  as  far  as  possible  from  being  officious  or  dicta- 
torial. "  The  first  advice  I  have  to  give  you,"  he 
writes  to  a  friend,  "  is  never  to  take  any  body's. 
No  man  can  adopt  another's  experience,  so  I  beg 
of  you  never  to  take  any  advice  of  mine,  though  I 


22  MEMOIR. 

assure  you  I  shall  give  you  a  good  deal.  If  I 
thought  you  would  take  it  on  trust,  I  would  not  give 
you  a  word  ;  for  it  is  quite  as  much  as  I  can  do  to 
take  care  of  my  own  soul."  And  there  is  a  mutual 
deference  and  modesty  on  both  sides,  which  makes 
the  full  and  frequent  correspondence  of  this  period 
singularly  harmonious  and  beautiful. 

The  last  winter  of  his  Cambridge  life  he  spent  in 
teaching  a  public  school  in  Hanson,  where  his  resi- 
dence was  in  the  household  of  very  dear  friends. 
His  teaching  was  no  unimportant  part  of  his  liveli- 
hood (yet  even  this  he  was  most  open  and  liberal  to 
share)  ;  and  here  is  the  way  he  proposed  to  earn 
the  scanty  emolument  of  a  small  country  school  :  — 

"  Is  there  any  lyceum,  or  any  materials  for  one  ? 
If  not,  can't  your  people  be  brought  out  one  evening  in 
the  week  to  social  reading  meetings,  or  conversations 
about  education  and  schools  ?  I  should  be  very  glad 
to  utter  my  word  on  education,  or,  if  you  have  a  ly- 
ceum, give  you  three  or  four  lectures.  I  want  very 
much  to  give  some  religious  lectures,  —  to  present  an 
antidote  to  skepticism  and  indifference,  in  a  simple  and 
common-sense  view  of  religion.  I  thought,  if  I  gave 
some  Sunday-evening  lectures,  I  might  get  some  of  the 
Orthodox  to  hear  me.  Is  there  any  good  place,  and  is 
this  practicable  ?  If  not,  can  I  have  the  chance  of 
preaching  during  the  day,  —  of  course  without  any 


MEMOIR.  23 

pay  ?     I  may  not  attempt  all  this,  though  I  want  to 
make  the  winter  an  active  one." 

Elsewhere,  he  speaks  of  "  physiological  lectures" 
as  part  of  his  intended  course.  And  all  these  were 
incidental  labors,  in  addition  to  the  ordinary  cares 
and  details  of  a  common  school,  —  part  of  his  the- 
ory of  a  suitable  training  for  his  profession.  Some 
of  the  records  he  has  left  of  this  winter's  style  of 
thought  and  work  are  contained  in  the  following  ex- 
tracts :  — 

Hanson,  February  8,  1844.  —  "  What  nature  is  to 
God,  expression  is  to  consciousness.  Now,  most  per- 
sons live  in  the  barely  outward  and  phenomenal ;  they 
are  content  with  the  expression  of  things,  whether  there 
is  any  reality  behind  it  or  not.  A  few  live  in  conscious- 
ness, and  have  no  power  of  expression ;  but  the  true 
problem  is  to  unite  the  two  ;  for  as  thought  is  very  im- 
perfect and  unsatisfactory  without  its  appropriate  dress 
in  language,  so  the  feeling  or  consciousness  of  things, 
however  real,  demands  expression  for  its  full  perfection 
and  highest  gratification.  *  The  spirit  of  the  living 
creature  is  in  the  wheels  also.'  Now  I  know  I  have  a 
good  deal  of  sympathy  with  the  mass,  —  the  great 
heart ;  but  whenever  I  attempt  to  express  it,  or  to  act  up- 
on it,  one  of  two  things  inevitably  takes  place,  —  either 
the  expression  becomes  divorced  from  the  feelings,  and 
so  I  lose  all  personal  interest  in  it,  or  else  I  cannot 
reach  those  whom  I  would,  and  so  am  thrown  back  up- 


24  MEMOIR. 

* 

on  myself.  I  can  never  carry  on  a  conversation  with  a 
social  circle,  but  only  with  an  individual,  when  I  can 
say  I  and  thou.  I  am  a  dunce  at  gossip,  and  social 
parties  I  hate.  What  shall  I  do  ?  " 

"  I  have  n't  studied  any  since  I  have  been  here. 
Two  evenings  in  the  week  I  have  evening  schools. 
Saturday  evenings  I  give  a  lecture  on  education  in  my 
school-room.  Sundays  I  generally  preach  ;  and  the  rest 

of  the  time  I  visit  and  give  lyceum-lectures One 

incident  worthy  of  recording,  which  I  shall  never  forget, 
I  must  relate.  A  little  boy  eleven  years  old  was  reading 
one  day  from  '  The  Elder's  Deathbed,'  when  he  burst 
into  tears.  He  cried  and  sobbed  half  an  hour  ;  and  af- 
terwards, when  I  asked  him  the  reason,  he  said  it  made 
him  think  so  much  of  his  dead  mother  he  could  not  go 
on.  Warm-hearted  little  fellow,  how  I  loved  him  for 
remembering  her  !  She  had  been  dead  two  years,  and 
his  father  had  married  again.  That  night  I  dreamed 
his  mother  came  to  me,  and  told  me  to  give  her  little 
boy  three  kisses,  and  tell  him  she  had  sent  them." 

A  retrospect  of  this  laborious  winter,  and  of  the 
period  of  his  life  about  to  close,  together  with  his 
anticipations  and  views  of  the  special  work  for 
which  he  should  be  appointed,  will  be  found  in  the 
two  following  extracts.  The  first  is  addressed  to 
a  young  friend,  "  once  his  spiritual  son,  and  now 
his  brother,"  as  he  afterwards  designates  him  ;  and 
sufficiently  expresses  the  views  he  always  cherished 
,and  adhered  to. 


MEMOIR.  25 

Hanson,  February  14,  1844.  —  "  Seriously,  howev- 
er, you  have  no  right  to  make  up  your  mind  on  the 
subject  of  miracles.  The  question  is  an  historical  one, 
to  be  determined  on  historical  evidence.  It  is  a  ques- 
tion of  comparatively  little  importance,  not  at  all  iden- 
tified with  the  truth  of  Christianity.  Still,  it  is  not  to 
be  hastily  determined.  I  have  once  doubted  of  the  mir- 
acles, but  I  do  not  think  I  ever  shall  again.  However, 
I  have  neither  time  nor  disposition  to  go  into  an  argu- 
ment on  the  subject.  But  let  me  say  to  you,  for  I  have 
learned  it  from  my  own  experience,  Liberty  of  soul  is 
like  the  liberty  of  the  press,  though  infinitely  better 
than  restraint,  yet  not  without  its  perils.  When  the  law 
of  authority  is  removed  from  a  man,  he  needs  the  more 

to  reverence  the  law  of  his  spirit What  you  say 

of  the  unity  of  this  world  and  the  next  is  very  true. 
We  live  in  eternity,  —  in  heaven, — just  as  truly  now 
as  we  ever  shall.  We  call  a  man  one-sided,  not  be- 
cause he  does  any  particular  thing,  but  because  he 
takes  false  and  partial  views  of  things.  You  are  not  to 
be  considered  one-sided  because  you  labor  with  your 
head,  and  not  with  your  hands. 

"  When  I  came  down  here,  I  had  three  specific  ob- 
jects in  view:  —  to  keep  an  experimental  school,  to  give 
lectures,  and  to  try  to  exert  an  influence  on  people  by 
social  visiting  and  general  intercourse.  I  have  worked 
hard,  and  have  got  woful  tired  almost  every  day  ;  but  I 
have  not  accomplished  either  of  the  ends  I  had  in  view. 
My  school  is  quiet,  tolerably,  —  easy,  pleasant,  and  the 
scholars  are  attached  to  me.  Even  some  who  came 
with  the  intention,  avowed  beforehand,  of  giving  me 


26  MEMOIR. 

4| 

trouble,  are  perfectly  quiet  and  docile.  My  pacific  and 
amiable  principles  have  met  with  marvellous  success  ; 
and  I  might  say,  changing  the  line  of  the  poet  a  little, 
that 

'  Dolts  remain  to  learn,  who  came  to  play.' 

I  cannot  quote  the  other  line  with  equal  appropriate- 
ness, I  fear,  that 

'  Truth  from  his  lips  prevailed  with  double  sway.' 

On  the  whole,  I  have  n't  kept  a  remarkably  good 
school ;  I  cannot  flatter  myself  that  my  lectures  have 
done  any  particular  good  ;  and  as  for  visiting,  I  have  n't 
done  any.  Thus  do  a  man's  ideals  vanish  and  fade 
away.  Before  he  has  had  time  to  do  anything,  the  op- 
portunity vanishes.  Thus  at  least  it  always  is  with  me. 
I  long  to  live  a  hundred  years ;  yet  every  day  the 
haunting  thought  comes  up,  that  I  have  as  yet  done 
nothing,  and  that  I  shall  have  to  die  to-morrow,  as 
it  were.  No  thought  is  so  constantly  with  me,  none 
such  a  horror  and  a  misery,  as  this  of  the  rapid  flight 
of  time.  This  evening  I  came  up  to  Richard's,  and 
thought  I  would  have  a  good  time  writing  to  you  ;  but 
the  evening  is  far  spent,  and  I  have  not  written  what  I 
would.  But  I  must  say  good  night,  and,  in  conclusion, 
I  feel  like  giving  you  this  piece  of  advice.  Settle  with 
yourself  what  your  life-work  is  to  be,  —  what  you  can 
do,  —  and  set  about  it  earnestly  and  diligently,  '  doing 
with  your  might  what  your  hands  find  to  do  ' ;  '  for  the 
night  cometh,  in  which  no  man  can  work.'  One  of  the 
greatest  curses  of  life  is  the  thought  of  lost  privileges 
and  misspent  time.  Yet  there  is  one  thing  more  to  be 


MEMOIR.  27 

considered.  When  we  have  done  our  work,  we  have 
nothing  to  do  with  results.  We  have  no  right  to  calcu- 
late on  them,  or  to  be  disheartened  when  we  do  not  see 
such  as  we  desire.  But  sometimes  I  take  a  scunner  at 
myself,  and  come  to  think  that,  after  all,  I  am  not  of  half 
so  much  consequence  in  the  world  as  I  have  been  dis- 
posed to  think.  I  get  eaten  up  with  a  sense  of  my  own 
meanness.  But  these  things  pass  away,  and  again  I 
come  to  hope,  and  to  cherish  my  old  ideals.  But  daily 
I  come  to  feel  more  and  more  strongly  that  '  we  walk 
by  faith,  and  not  by  sight ' ;  but  thanks,  all  thanks,  that 
we  have  a  faith  to  walk  by. 

" Sarah  had  left  a  whole  line  of  clothes  out  to 

dry  ;  but  about  two  o'clock  the  rushing  of  the  wind,  the 
rattling  of  mingled  snow  and  hail  against  the  window, 
the  muttering  of  one  or  two  claps  of  thunder,  and  the 
flapping  of  sheets  and  shirts,  awoke  me  ;  so,  bolting  on 
my  clothes,  I  rushed  out  and  gathered  up  the  scatter- 
ed garments  that  were  flying  about  in  the  storm  like 
so  many  great  white  gulls.  Rather  romantic,  was  it 
not  ?  " 

Cambridge,  March  11, 1844.  —  "I  believe  I  was  wise 
in  not  attempting  to  create  a  new  religious  movement 
there.  It  would  either  have  failed,  or  raised  a  profitless 
breeze  of  excitement.  I  am  most  sorry  that  I  did  not 
devote  more  of  my  time  out  of  school  to  my  two  most 
promising  scholars,  Calvin  and  Edward.  I  am  more 
and  more  persuaded  that  my  work  is  not  to  act  strongly 
on  the  mass,  so  much  as  to  do  a  good  deal  for  a  few  in- 
dividuals. It  is  the  most  delightful  thought  of  my  life,  to 
think  that  two  or  three  persons  trace  their  moral  and  in- 


MEMOIR. 


tellectual  life  to  my  influence.  I  feel  with  the  mass  in 
the  great  interests  of  humanity,  but  I  do  not  feel  as  they 
feel,  and  I  have  not  yet  much  confidence  in  my  power 
either  to  speak  to  their  feelings,  or  to  make  them  com- 
prehend mine.  But  I  had  rather  tend  a  few  sheep  than 
a  large  flock  ;  and  I  think  I  can  sometimes  gather  up  a 
straggling  lamb  whom  others  have  cast  off  or  forgotten. 
At  any  rate,  I  would  rather  have  my  small  company 
wandering  about  over  the  hill-sides,  and  through  the 
green  forests,  than  to  have  them  nicely  penned  up  in  the 
close  and  crowded  fold,  where  they  cannot  stretch  their 
limbs  nor  breathe  freely.  Even  such  as  have  had 
many  a  wayward  ramble  in  rough  and  thorny  places,  the 
Good  Shepherd  may  lead  safely  home  at  last,  to  lie 
down  in  green  pastures  and  beside  the  still  waters. 

"  But  I  am  talking  of  myself  as  if  there  were  nobody 
else  in  the  world.  But  you  will  not  wonder  that  I  think 
much  of  myself  just  now,  and  of  my  work  in  the  world, 
when  I  am  just  about  to  loose  from  my  moorings  here, 
to  drift  out  on  the  broad  ocean.  Thanks  that  there  is  a 
pole-star  to  guide  me,  and  that  the  helm  is  in  wiser 
hands  than  mine  !  But  between  the  listlessness  of  indif- 
ference and  the  tremblings  of  a  spirit  awed  with  glan- 
cing open-eyed  at  the  responsibilities  of  life,  I  dread  lest 
these  threescore  or  less  years  should  be  lost  between 
inaction  on  the  one  hand  and  uncertainty  on  the  other. 
But  I  have  no  business  with  the  future." 

In  July,  1844,  he  was  one  of  the  small  class  (of 
four)  that  graduated  from  the  Theological  School. 
His  Dissertation,  "  On  the  Mystical  Element  in 


MEMOIR.  29 

Religion,"  was  inserted  in  the  Christian  Examiner.;* 
and,  excepting  a  sermon  addressed  to  children,  is  the 
only  piece  of  his  writing  that  has  appeared  in  print. 
As  a  preacher,  he  seems  to  have  become  at  once 
popular,  and  to  have  displayed  all  those  qualities  of 
fancy,  tenderness,  devotion,  and  a  gentle  earnest- 
ness, that  always  characterized  his  public  ministra- 
tions. A  visit  in  Providence,  to  the  sick-bed  of  the 
young  friend  spoken  of  before,  and  preaching  in  sev- 
eral country  villages,  are  the  only  incidents  that  di- 
versified the  brief  interval  before  his  settlement. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  autumn,  he  was  engaged 
to  preach  at  Leominster,  in  Worcester  county  ; 
and  as  it  is  here  that  the  remainder  of  his  life  was 
spent,  unless  when  he  was  withdrawn  from  all  active 
duties  by  sickness,  this  will  henceforth  be  regarded 
as  his  home.  His  local  attachments  were  strong, 
decided,  and  quickly  formed.  The  bold  and  beau- 
tiful scenery  of  that  region  became  very  dear  to  him  ; 
and  his  personal  affections  speedily  became  concen- 
trated upon  a  spot  that  was  the  scene  of  so  much 
labor,  sorrow,  and  spiritual  experience.  Hereafter  I 
shall  do  little  more  than  follow  the  course  of  his  in- 
ward life,  as  told  most  fully  and  touchingly  in  his 

*  November,  1844. 


30  MEMOIR. 

correspondence.  The  thread  is  almost  unbroken  ; 
and  there  will  seldom  be  occasion  to  use  many  other 
words  than  his.  The  next  extract  is  from  a  letter 
written  to  a  near  friend  and  fellow-student,  during 
this  interval. 

Leominster,  September  27, 1844.  —  "I  have  had  very 
small  joys  of  late.  That  old  feeling  has  come  over  me 
of  the  smallness  and  insignificance  of  life,  —  a  certainty 
that  I  shall  not  accomplish  what  I  wish ;  and  anything 
short  of  that  seems  worthless.  I  have  had  a  strange 
feeling,  too,  quite  new  to  me, —  a  conviction  that  life 
was  to  be  very  short  with  me,  and  a  willingness  that  it 
should.  So  strange  is  it,  that,  just  on  the  realization  of 
the  hopes  we  have  lived  on  for  years,  they  mock  us  with 
their  unreality.  Something  of  old  times,  a  halo  of  child- 
hood, came  over  me,  as,  under  a  chestnut-tree,  I  looked 
far  over  the  surrounding  forests,  with  all  their  mellow 
tints,  to  the  blue  summit  of  kingly  Wachusett,  with  his 
mist-crown,  or  again,  paddling  down  the  Nashua  in  a 
little  canoe,  where  nothing  but  woods,  and  God's  still- 
ness, and  the  gentle  sunshine  were  around  me,  and  on 
the  steep  bank  above  old  pines  shot  up  their  spiry  heads 
a  hundred  feet,  and  whispered  words  of  love  and  re- 
membrance. 

"  Thus  much  for  the  passive  side  of  your  friend's 
present  character,  —  the  floating  clouds  that  leisurely 
sail  over  his  horizon.  These  few  hieroglyphics,  not  un- 
intelligible to  you,  may  serve  to  show  more  than  lies  on 
the  surface.  Now  for  the  undercurrent,  —  the  still  depth 


MEMOIR.  31 

over  which  float  azure  and  rose-colored  clouds,  and 
sweeping  storms,  and  the  bright  sun  makes  many  a  rev- 
olution, but  leaves  still  unchanged.  To  be,  to  do,  to 
suffer,  these  are  the  means  and  present  aims  of  life ; 
the  End  is  not  yet.  And  these  are  all  active,  —  sum- 
moning the  strong  man  to  gird  himself  for  the  struggle, 
and,  shaking  off  the  selfishness  and  sloth  of  subjectivity, 
and  the  poor  fancies  of  a  dreaming  brain,  go  forth  among 
'  things  common  and  unclean^  to  work,  —  manfully,  ear- 
nestly, even  to  the  soiling  of  his  garments  and  his  hands, 
—  even  to  weariness  and  disgust  and  nausea  sometimes. 
It  is  a  comforting  thing,  when  you  come  to  look  at  it  so, 
that  when  this  poor,  sick  widow  wants  our  prayers,  and 
that  degraded  man  our  entreaties,  and  that  weak  young 
man  our  counsels,  and  that  stricken,  heart-broken 
mother  our  sympathy,  we  shall  forget  our  own  Etna  in 
helping  to  lift  Pelion  and  Ossa  from  hearts  weak  and 
overburdened,  and  thus  perhaps  do  most  to  upheave  our 
own  heavy  load.  But  none  the  less  is  our  Etna  a  reality, 
that  rolls  back  upon  us  when  we  are  set  free  again  ;  but 
we,  like  the  Cyclops,  forge  there  in  its  dark  caverns, 
with  sweat  and  toil,  the  celestial  armour  that  enrolls  us 
kings  and  chiefs  among  the  armies  of  the  gods." 

The  Christmas  of  this  year  (1844)  was  a  bright 
and  happy  day  for  him.  His  marriage  (with  Miss 
Elizabeth  Clapp,  of  Dorchester)  had  taken  place  a 
month  before,  on  the  19th  of  November  ;  so  that 
the  cheerful  cares  of  hospitality,  and  the  graver 
ones  of  ministerial  duly,  began  together.  Some  of 


32  MEMOIR. 

the  dearest  friends  of  his  youth  and  manhood  were 
gathered  in  his  new  home,  to  welcome  him  to  the 
duties  and  privileges  of  his  office.  It  was  an  aus- 
picious and  joyful  celebration,  —  this  prelude  to  so 
brief  and  laborious  and  sorrowful  a  ministry.  To 
the  services  of  the  day,  (which  were  afterwards  print- 
ed,) he  responded  with  affectionate  gratitude.  The 
simple  hospitalities  of  his  household  were  exercised 
with  his  own  happy  and  genial  spirit ;  and  no  one 
would  have  augured  anything  but  hope  in  the  new 
course  thus  auspiciously  thrown  open.  From  a  let- 
ter to  his  former  pastor,  I  transcribe  the  following 
account  of  the  commencement  of  his  parish  life  :  — 

Leominster,  January  6,  1845.  —  "  Everything  thus 
far  is  as  fair  as  possible.  Nobody  ever  began  under 
fairer  auspices.  Everybody  is  friendly,  —  everybody 
is  pleased.  I  invited  people  to  come  and  see  me  New- 
Year's  Eve.  About  two  hundred  came,  from  far  and 
near,  —  old  and  young.  Everybody  says  to  every- 
body, What  a  turn-out  it  is !  —  we  never  saw  the  like 
before.  Just  so  at  the  ladies'  sewing-meeting  here,  on 
Thursday.  There  were  sixty-eight  or  seventy  ladies 
present,  —  the  largest  meeting  ever  known.  Then  on 
Sundays  they  have  come  out  like  the  doves  to  their  win- 
dows, and  filled  my  great  church  almost  as  full  as  at 
Ordination.  Now  don't  be  frightened,  good  brother 
mine,  at  all  this  chuckling.  I  know  just  as  well  as  you 


MEMOIR.  3«i 

do  how  much  it  is  all  worth,  and  how  little  to  be  de- 
pended on L  know  them  a  great  deal  better 

than  they  know  me ;  I  cannot  rely  on  present  popular- 
ity, and  I  do  not It  is  a  fair  field  of  labor  and 

a  wide,  —  hopeful  and  pressing.  For  myself,  I  am  singu- 
larly free  from  exciting  feelings,  either  of  expectation 
or  anxiety.  I  mean  to  work,  —  I  trust  to  work  success- 
fully. Beyond  this  I  have  hardly  any  feeling  about  it. 
But  enough  of  myself. 

"  And  now  let  me  go  back  to  a  review  of  the  past,  — 
an  experience  most  singularly  blessed,  —  a  course  not 
merely  to  be  regarded  as  providential,  but  as  peculiarly 
and  unusually  favored.  Let  me  tell  you  here,  what  I 
think  few  can  say,  that  I  have  never  had  an  ideal  that 
has  not  been  realized,  except  that  of  personal  charac- 
ter. I  have  been  accustomed  for  years  to  feel  that 
everything  would  happen  just  as  I  wished  it  should, 
and  it  always  has.  You  gave  me  credit  the  other  day  for 
having  worked  my  own  way.  No,  Sir,  not  a  step  of  it. 
It  has  always  been  made  plain  and  smooth  before  me. 
Whatever  of  uprightness  there  is  in  me,  whatever  of 
upward  aspiration  or  worthy  purpose,  is  not  merely  first 
of  all,  but  solely,  by  the  grace  of  God.  Whatever  I  have 
done,  or  seemed  to  do,  it  was  not  I  that  did  it,  but  the 
force  of  circumstances,  ordered  by  a  higher  Power." 

To  one  who  had  been  in  the  habit  of  both  giving 

and  receiving  so  much  of  intellectual  and  religious 

sympathy,  there  must  almost  inevitably  have  been  a 

sense  of  chill  and  loneliness,  at  finding  himself  sur- 

3 


34  MEMOIR. 

rounded  by  comparative  strangers.  His  heart  nat- 
urally turned  back  to  the  companions  of  his  thought 
and  study,  with  a  craving  for  the  same  intercourse 
he  had  so  relied  on  before.  "  What  I  want  to 
say  is,"  he  says,  "  that  when  any  thoughts  new  and 
precious  do  deign  to  flap  their  wings  over  my  poor 
brain,  I  shall  be  desperately  glad  to  put  some  salt 
on  their  tails,  and  send  them,  all  picked  and  spitted, 
down  to  you.  For  alas  !  there  is  no  soul  here 
that  can  digest  such  rich  meats,  —  not  a  soul  that  I 
can  talk  my  own  talk  to."  This  is  partly  the  feel- 
ing he  had  expressed  before,  of  his  want  of  readi- 
ness in  general  intercourse.  "  This  is  one  of  my 
few  troubles.  Another,  and  the  greatest,  is  the 
immensity  of  parochial  duty,  that  threatens  to  frit- 
ter me  into  an  intellectual  atrophy,  not  leaving  me 
'  leisure  so  much  as  to  eat,'  much  less  to  digest, 
any  fair  amount  of  mental  fodder.  What  you  say 
of  your  position  and  experience  T  thank  you  for  ex- 
pressing ;  yet  I  think  it  is  rather  strange  you  should 
need  such  sort  of  troubles,  while  I,  who  seem  to 
myself  to  need  all  kinds  of  torments  and  vexations, 
have  never  had  any  to  speak  of.  However,  I  am 
hopeful  on  that  point,  and  begin  to  look  for  clouds 
in  the  shape  of  a  man's  hand.  But  no  poor  sinner 


MEMOIR. 


was  ever  favored  with  having  things  just  right,  as  I 
have  been  thus  far."  What  sort  of  pressure  is 
here  hinted  at  is  perhaps  more  clearly  indicated  in 
the  course  of  the  few  following  extracts.  As  the 
burden  of  actual  duty  weighed  more  heavily,  and 
the  reaction  came  after  several  months'  comparative 
excitement,  his  health  would  naturally  suffer  from 
the  continued  tension,  and  his  mind  recoil  from  the 
vague  prospect  of  foreboding  evil.  The  changing 
tone  of  spirits,  and  the  gradual  transition  to  a  more 
sober  view  of  things  generally,  are  sufficiently  ap- 
parent from  his  own  words. 

Leominster,  March  2,  1845. — "I  have  got  a  good 
deal  to  say  to  you.  For  in  good  truth  I  am  rather  blue 
and  dumpish.  I  do  not  know  that  I  can  get  any  help 
from  you,  but  perhaps  I  can,  and  at  least  you  will  know 
how  to  sympathize  with  me.  I  am  tormented  in  vari- 
ous ways.  Here  are  two  bad  things  at  the  outset.  I 
have  too  much  to  do,  and  yet  don't  do  half  as  much 
as  I  might.  Then  here  are  various  problems  present- 
ing themselves  to  my  mind  with  most  appalling  distinct- 
ness. 1.  How  shall  I  secure  my  own  intellectual  and 
spiritual  culture,  with  so  many  things  to  occupy  me, 
pressing  heavily  on  my  hands  ?  2.  How  shall  I,  with 
the  necessity  of  thinking  and  writing  constantly  for  oth- 
ers, keep  my  mental  freedom  ?  I  am  afraid  of  dying 
before  my  body  does,  which  would  be  a  most  deplorable 
thing,  don't  you  think  ?  I  seem  to  fancy  you  or  some- 


36  MEMOIR. 

body  else  asking  me,  some  few  years  hence, '  What  are 
you  doing  ? '  And  I  imagine  myself  replying,  in  dolorous 
drollery,  '  Creeping  out  of  the  little  end  of  the  horn.' 
You  see  I  am  rather  blue,  —  but  these  are  sober  ques- 
tions, very  sober.  Don't  imagine  I  am  slumping  yet. 
I  wrote  two  sermons  yesterday,  besides  making  five 
calls,  some  two  miles  distant,  and  have  got  some  stuff 
left,  though  I  have  preached  at  home  ever  since  my 
settlement,  except  a  day  and  a  half  of  love-labors.  But 
I  know  that  my  spontaneous  thought  is  not  just  the  thing 
for  my  people.  What  can  be  done  to  secure  my  own 
growth  and  freedom  ? 

"  There  is  some  good  to  be  accomplished  by  making 
men  who  can't  recognize  Christianity  see  and  feel  some- 
thing of  natural  religion ;  but  it  is  now  a  greater  work 
with  me,  and  more  pressing,  to  preach  Christ,  —  in 
whom  and  through  whom  we  come  to  realize  the  relig- 
ious souls  within  us,  —  the  only  name  whereby  we  must 
be  saved.  The  Bible,  too,  —  I  want  to  preach  about 
that ;  but  I  don't  know  how.  I  want  to  urge  its  claims 
upon  those  who  regard  it  with  superstitious  reverence, 
perhaps,  but  lack  a  living,  rational,  hearty  belief  in  it. 
Now  to  such  my  belief  must  smack  strongly  of  unbe- 
lief; and  I  dread  to  weaken  what  I  seek  to  confirm. 
Sometimes  I  grow  sick  at  heart,  and  think  of  the  charms 
of  a  retired  cottage  under  some  green  hill,  with  woods 
and  brooks  and  birds  and  liberty,  —  liberty  from  re- 
sponsibility too  heavy,  from  petty  duties  and  trivial 
cares,  from  a  multiplication  of  labors  so  inefficiently 
done,  —  liberty  '  to  wander  at  my  own  sweet  will,'  and 
think  my  own  thoughts,  and  do  my  own  deeds.  I 


MEMOIR.  37 

thought  the  work  of  the  ministry  would  always  seem 
great  and  noble  to  me,  —  always  satisfy  my  demands  ; 
but  sometimes  it  don't.  It  comes  to  be  small  in  its  avo- 
cations and  mean  in  its  results.  But  enough  of  these 
things." 

April  27,  1845.  —  "  There  are  three  changes  in  my 
life-philosophy  which  will  sufficiently  show  you  my 
present  position.  1.  Whereas  I  once  had  an  ideal  of 
growth  and  culture,  I  have  substituted  instead  of  it  an 
ideal  of  action  for  others'  sake,  and  growth  and  culture 
only  incidentally  on  their  behoof.  It  is  not  my  work  to 
climb  up  to  the  mountain-top  that  I  may  see  stars,  but 
down  in  the  dusty  road,  to  help  this  tired  man  wheel 
his  barrow,  and  that  poor  woman  carry  her  bundle. 
2.  Whereas  I  thought  once  that  God  had  made  people 
to  be  happy,  I  don't  believe  any  such  thing.  Every 
man  has  his  burden  to  carry,  and  it  is  about  as  much 
as  he  can  lift.  A  man  must  do  his  work  and  not 
grumble  ;  and  so  cheerfulness,  which  would  otherwise 
be  a  thing  easy  and  of  necessity,  becomes  a  duty  and 
a  virtue.  By  and  by  the  circle  will  come  full  round, 
and  the  cheerfulness  which  was  by  faith  shall  be 
changed  into  the  ecstasy  of  fruition.  3.  Whereas  I 
once  thought  of  shedding  abroad  some  new  light  in  the 
world,  and  had  some  hope  of  doing  something  great,  I 
have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  world  was  n't 
waiting  for  me  at  all ;  nay,  I  'm  not  quite  sure  I  've 
got  much  of  anything  to  say  to  it,  —  half  inclined  to 
think  it 's  running  away  from  me. 

"Now  tell  me  plainly  what,  you  think  of  all  this. 
I  'm  afraid  you  '11  call  it  rather  dowdy,  and  not  at  all 


38  MEMOIR. 

inspiring,  —  this  ideal  of  a  country  parson.  You  see  it 
is  n't  radical,  but  conservative,  and  that  is  true  of  me. 
I  begin  to  feel  it  takes  a  good  deal  of  a  man's  time  and 
ability  to  strengthen  the  things  that  remain.  If  he  can 
build  on  a  wing  here  or  there,  or  run  up  a  new  spire 
from  the  belfry  somewhat  higher  than  the  old,  or  clear 
away  some  of  the  rubbish  that  the  outer  court  of  the 
temple  is  cluttered  with,  so  much  the  better ;  but  the 
first  thing  is  to  keep  the  old  corner-stone  sound  and 
true.  This  ideal  is  almost  too  practical  to  be  called  an 
ideal,  —  eh  ?  Well,  what  can  you  expect  of  a  country 
parson  ?  I  have  shown  you  the  dingiest  side  on  pur- 
pose. It  doos  not  lack  all  inspiration,  after  all,  I  assure 
you.  The  old  pile  looks  rather  quaint  in  its  architec- 
ture, and  seems  to  be  tottering  here  and  there ;  but 
there  is  a  deal  of  venerable  beauty  about  it,  and,  chill 
as  it  seems,  there  are  good  warm  embers  on  the  altar 
that  only  want  a  little  blowing  to  burn  up  into  a  bright 
flame.  There,  —  what  do  you  think  of  it>  At  least 
it  will  give  you  something  to  write  about." 

March  31. —  "I  have  made  two  hundred  and  fifty 
calls,  and  have  a  hundred  families  yet  to  call  on.  I 
am  delegate  to  a  temperance  convention,  but  can't  go. 
Have  ladies'  meeting  Wednesday,  P.  M.,  and  teachers' 
meeting  in  the  evening.  Thursday,  Fast  and  a  wed- 
ding, and  two  sermons  to  write  for  next  Sunday.  Have 
had  a  bronchitis  these  three  weeks,  which  is  awful ;  but 
otherwise  in  good  health  and  spirits.  Yesterday  a  man 
asked  me  what  I  meant  by  my  invitation  to  the  com- 
munion ;  so  I  told  him.  I  have  since  spent  four  or  five 
hours  in  reading  through  the  church  records  from  be- 


MEMOIR.  6V 

ginning  to  end,  and  there  is  not  a  single  by-law,  and  no 
restriction  to  my  admitting  to  the  church  in  any  way  I 
think  proper.  So  I  shall  at  least  infringe  no  rule,  do 
what  I  may.  I  have  been  perfectly  astonished  to  find 
what  a  weight  of  authority  the  minister's  voice  has 
here.  I  never  saw  such  a  place  in  that  respect.  I 
fancy,  too,  I  am  getting  popularity  and  influence  with 
the  young  men ;  a  good  many  come  out  to  my  Sunday 
evening  meetings. 

'*  But  for  all  this  outward  success  I  feel  dull  and  blue. 
I  am  not  strong  enough  to  do  the  work  of  this  great 
parish ;  and  in  strong,  sound,  every-day,  practical  good 
sense,  I  do  not  come  up  to  their  demand.  However, 
just  now  not  a  dog  wags  his  tail  against  me.  I  shall 
keep  a  sharp  eye  to  windward,  and  not  take  for  granted 
that  anything  will  be  to-morrow  because  it  is  to-day. 
At  the  same  time,  I  think  they  are  about  the  best  people 
in  the  world,  and  I  should  be  sorry  to  lose  them." 

The  natural  results  of  over-work  and  constant 
anxiety  were  presently  apparent.  The  bodily  sys- 
tem was  debilitated,  and  the  energy  of  mind  de- 
pressed. Besides  the  parish  labor,  there  were  the 
very  anxious  and  wearing  cares  of  his  family,  —  his 
wife's  feeble  health,  and  the  severe  illness  of  his 
sister.  In  the  multiplicity  of  things  he  was  "  har- 
assed and  perplexed,  having  a  larger  portion  of  the 
responsibilities  of  Providence  than  my  weak  shoul- 
ders were  able  to  bear,  like  the  man  in  Rasselas, 


40  MEMOIR. 

who  had  the  superintendence  of  the  weather,  and 
was  almost  crazy  with  anxiety."  His  constitution 
was  not  of  that  sturdy  sort  to  endure  the  wear  and 
tear  of  mental  labor  and  over-exertion  of  the  lungs. 
To  speak  always  with  straining  and  effort,  and  often 
in  the  exposure  of  cold  and  damp,  was  a  gradual 
undermining  of  his  frame,  and  made  him  very  vul- 
nerable to  the  attacks  of  the  disorder  he  dreaded 
most.  With  the  heat  of  early  summer  these  symp- 
toms were  aggravated,  as  he  describes  them  in  the 
compressed  diary  style  of  the  following  account. 
Under  the  garb  of  forced  humor,  the  brave  and  true 
spirit  of  it  is  all  the  more  plainly  seen. 

June  25,  1845.  —  "I  am  still  in  the  land  of  the  liv- 
ing, though  you  may  have  begun  to  doubt  it ;  but  yet 
in  a  most  questionable  mood  for  a  correspondent.  A 
slight  history  of  the  past  week  may  serve  to  show 
the  preparations  which  have  conspired  to  make  me 
such  a  correspondent  as  I  am.  To  wit :  —  Saturday 
night.  Feverish  and  sick  ;  throat  sore  ;  stomach  disor- 
dered, &c.  —  Sunday  morning.  Rode  nine  miles ;  drank 
tea  ;  preached.  —  Evening.  Fever  abated  ;  voice  do.  ; 
strength  do.  —  Monday  morning.  Voice  gone  to  grass  ; 
only  able  to  wheeze  through  my  gills  ;  breakfasted  on 
senna  tea.  —  Tuesday.  Voice  audible  and  squeaky ; 
took  ipecac  and  three  leeches,  —  the  last  externally. — 
Wednesday.  Breakfasted  on  castor-oil ;  dined  on  noth- 
ing ;  took  tea  and  a  cold,  out.  —  Thursday.  This  pres- 


MEMOIR.  41 

ent.  Tolerably  comfortable  and  calm  ;  yes,  very  calm  ; 
something  like  a  half-drowned  puppy.  Still  with  a 
feeling  that  I  want  to  go  somewhere,  or  do  something, 
or  see  somebody,  I  don't  know  where  or  what  or  who. 
I  can't  talk ;  I  can't  read  ;  I  can't  write,  as  you  will  be 
able  to  testify.  I  am  just  like  an  elephant  with  one 
foot  tied  ;  —  no,  not  that ;  more  like  those  Brazilian  spar- 
rows that  they  fasten  by  a  hook  in  their  throat.  Now 
I  am  not  blue, — I  do  not  think  I  am  anxious,  —  yet  it 
is  n't  in  human  flesh  to  think  of  leaving  these  green 
hills  and  the  best  people  I  shall  ever  find,  with  a  pros- 
pect of  relinquishing  my  profession  in  the  end,  —  it 
is  n't  in  mortal  flesh  not  to  squirm  a  little,  let  the  high 
ideal  of  perfect  trust  and  submission  be  as  strong  as  it 
will.  I  do  not  ask  you  to  pity  me  ;  I  had  rather  you 
would  commend  me  a  little  for  looking  all  this  calmly 
in  the  face,  as  I  do  this  minute. 

"  My  plans  are  definitely  formed  so  far  as  this :   I 
shall  not  preach  for  three  months.     If  then  I  am  well, 
(as  really  I  have  very  little  hope  of  being,)  resume  my 
duties  ;  if  not,  ask  my  dismission  at  once,  come  to  Dor- 
chester, and  find  some  pretty  active  employment  for  a 
year.     Then,  if  my  health  permits,  take  a  small  parish 
with  a  small  church,  and  settle  very  quietly  down,  '  one 
of  those  lesser  lights,'  that  still  shed  out  some  feeble 
rays  in  a  dark  place.  .....  The  probabilities,  I  have 

hinted  before,  are  altogether  against  my  ever  getting 
rid  of  this  bronchial  susceptibility  ;  and  to  go  on  preach- 
ing with  that  would  be  downright  suicide. 

"  Now  pray  don't  think  of  me  as  moping  away  my 
gloomy  days  '  like  Patience  on  a  monument.'  I  don't 


42  MEMOIR. 

do  any  such  thing.  I  ride  about  and  enjoy  myself,  — 
that  is,  as  well  as  I  can.  But  as  it  is  my  opinion  that 
the  Lord,  when  he  sees  people  making  a  fuss  about  his 
providences,  always  says,  '  Well,  they  shan't  grumble 
without  a  reason,'  I  think  that  it  is  best  to  bear  it  well 
from  motives  of  self-interest.  Now  my  '  country  par- 
son' reverence  is  rather  shocked,  and  bristles  up  at  this 
last  sentence  ;  but  you  will  know  what  it  means.  It  is 
a  poor  patience  that  only  bears  and  blubbers  :  the  true 
victory  of  faith  is  to  overcome  and  rise  above  trials. 
However,  I  have  n't  come  to  the  struggle  as  yet,  and  I 
don't  intftnd  to  set  up  for  a  martyr  till  I  find  out  whether 
there  is  any  demand,  and  whether  I  am  able  to  bear  it. 
Father  Taylor  said  a  good  thing  the  other  day,  —  "  Him 
that  is  n't  willing  to  stand  by  God,  naked  and  hungry  and 
alone,  the  Lord  will  leave  to  stand  by  himself;  but  who- 
soever is  willing  to  trust  God  being  empty,  God  will 
trust  him  to  be  full."  Write  me,  write  me ;  I  need  it 
now  ;  I  must  snuggle  close  up  to  my  friends  now,  not 
as  one  that  dreads  the  storm,  but  as  one  who  would 
both  be  helped  and  help  others  to  brave  it,  and  keep 
warm  in  spite  of  it." 

Having  left  his  household  in  charge  of  a  young 
friend  and  relative,  he  spent  a  portion  of  the  summer 
in  unwonted  quiet  and  recreation.  Of  the  compara- 
tively free  and  wandering  life  of  this  period,  \vhen 
the  repair  of  bodily  health  seemed  to  be  the  first 
duty,  there  is  very  little  to  tell.  At  one  time  he  is 
seized  with  an  enthusiasm  for  hard  labor,  and  con- 


MEMOIR.  43 

jectures  that  Providence  may  have  meant  him  for  a 
farmer  ;  at  another,  he  is. giving  counsel  and  direc- 
tion for  the  charge  of  his  family,  or  sending  flowers, 
with  a  few  pleasant  words  of  remembrance,  to  the 
children  of  the  Sunday  School.  In  many  of  his 
letters  he  indulges  freely  in  his  propensity  for  what 
is  ludicrous  and  grotesque,  —  a  propensity,  he  says, 
which  "  sometimes  besets  me  even  in  the  company 
of  the  non-elect,  and  I  have  to  struggle  against  it 
for  religion's  sake";  and  again  his  strain  is  more 
sober  than  his  wont.  Among  the  more  thoughtful 
and  religious  meditations  of  this  period  are  the  fol- 
lowing :  — 

Dover.  —  "  In  this  quiet  seclusion  I  get  calmed  and 
strengthened  spiritually  as  well  as  bodily.  I  feel  that  it 
is  just  what  I  need,  either  as  a  preparation  for  renewed 
duties,  or  the  trial  of  separation  from  my  people.  What 
lessons  of  calm  trust,  of  unwavering  faith  in  God's 
providence,  one  drinks  in  from  the  book  of  Nature  !  What 
a  storehouse  has  she,  indeed,  of  all  celestial  arcana,  — 
what  a  ready  sympathy  for  all  our  states  of  thought  and 
feeling  !  And  yet  we  must  not  forget  that  Jesus  is  the 
interpreter  of  Nature's  voice.  If  he  had  not  christian- 
ized Nature,  she  would  not  be  to  us  full  of  all  glorious 
truth,  as  she  is.  Or  rather,  with  the  eyes  which  he  has 
made  to  see,  we  discern  in  all  its  clear  beauty  that  latent 
wisdom  and  truth  of  Nature,  which  was  but  dim  and 


44  MEMOIR. 

shadowy  before.  It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  you  do 
justice,  I  will  not  say  to  Jesus,  who  indeed  demands 
nothing  of  us,  but  to  the  personal  relation  of  the  soul  to 
Jesus.  The  doctrine  of  life  in  and  through  Jesus  —  the 
old  doctrine  of  atonement  —  seems  to  me  to  cover  a 
great  truth.  The  atonement  of  Jesus,  I  think,  consisted 
in  these  two  things :  First,  he  brought  man  to  the  truth, 
and  so  reconciled  him  to  God.  By  the  power  of  his  life 
and  death  he  brought  the  affections  and  desires  of  the 
soul  to  a  state  of  recipiency  ;  he  led  men  to  desire  and 
seek  the  truth.  But  how  were  they  to  find  it  ?  It  lay 
so  far  from  them,  there  was  such  a  gulf  between  them 
and  the  Deity,  the  embodiment  of  the  truth,  that  they 
could  not  even  see  across  the  space,  much  less  reach  up 
to  grasp  that  which  they  could  not  discern.  In  the 
second  place,  then,  Jesus  brought  the  truth  dow.n  to  men, 
—  made  it  actual,  living,  tangible,  in  his  example. 
Thus  men  were  able  to  comprehend  it,  —  to  seize  hold 
of  it  and  live  it  out.  Thus  all  religious  truth  became 
henceforth  Christian  truth,  and  men  see  it  through  Chris- 
tian teaching,  and  receive  it  through  Christian  influences. 
Thus  Jesus  might  say,  with  strict  propriety,  '  I  am  the 
door  of  the  sheep.  If  any  man  will  enter  by  me,  he 
shall  go  in  and  out  and  find  pasture.'  Religious  truth 
has  a  human  and  a  Divine  side.  Jesus  showed  its 
human  phase,  and  thus  led  men  up  till  they  could  look 
upon  the  splendor  of  the  Divine. 

"  But  when  we  have  attained  to  this  point,  is  the  hu- 
man side  to  be  neglected  or  overlooked  ?  Does  Jesus, 
having  led  us  as  far  as  he  could  go,  leave  us  to  proceed 
on  our  way  alone,  so  that  we  turn  back  to  bid  him  fare- 


MEMOIR.  45 

well  ?  I  think  not.  When  we  do  leave  him  thus,  I 
think  we  lose  a  little  of  our  clearness  and  certainty, 
something  of  the  warmth  of  our  devotion  and  the  quick- 
ness of  our  conscience,  and  much  of  our  sympathy  with 
man  as  man.  We  cease  to  be  brethren  of  the  race,  and 
become  only  brethren  of  a  few.  The  time  has  been 
when  I  thought  I  saw  this  result  in  you.  Either  I  was 
mistaken,  or  you  have  changed  your  position  a  little, 
and  come  back  towards  Jesus  and  man,  —  into  closer 
sympathy  with  human  kind. 

"  Somehow,  I  write  laboriously  of  late.  There  seems 
to  be  a  little  blur  over  my  faculties,  as  well  as  a  cloud 
over  my  prospects.  The  freshness  of  my  early  inspira- 
tion has  spent  itself  for  a  season.  But  I  am  conscious 
of  a  deeper  current  in  my  soul,  though  it  be  not  appar- 
ent, and  I  know  that  life,  like  outward  nature,  must  have 
its  seasons.  And  though  the  trees  are  stripped  leafless 
in  autumn,  and  the  streams  freeze  up  in  winter,  it  is 
only  a  wise  provision  for  the  coming  spring-time.  — 
And  I  have  been  left  alone  of  late  for  the  first  time  for 
years,  —  alone  on  a  wide,  wide  sea,  and  I  had  wellnigh 
sunk.  But  afar  off  in  the  East  I  dimly  saw  a  little  boat, 
and  I  held  up  my  head  boldly,  for  God  was  in  it. 

"  As  for  me,  I  am  '  walking  with  God '  here  in  the 
bushes,  learning  submission  and  tranquillity  of  spirit. 
It  may  not  become  me  to  say  it,  but  I  should  dishonor 
my  Teacher  not  to  hope  I  am  improving.  With  plenty 
of  leisure  to  think  all  manner  of  gloomy  thoughts,  — 
with  a  loneliness  that  sometimes  -  makes  me  shudder 
with  chilliness,  —  with  a  dismal,  dark,  drenching  rain  as 
you  could  wish,  —  yet  I  sit  writing  in  my  chamber  this 
afternoon  in  a  state  of  unusual  happiness." 


46  MEMOIR. 

Leominster,  September  19.  — "  Hard  times  I  have  had 
since  I  wrote  you  last.  Yet  no,  —  the  sweet  is  more 
than  the  bitter,  thanks  to  the  mingler  of  life's  draught ; 
and  in  this  time  of  '  golden  leisure  '  I  have  been  putting 
out  green  leaves,  and  now  I  feel  as  if  my  flesh  was 
coming  to  me  again  like  the  flesh  of  a  little  child. 
Strangely  content  and  happy,  I  live  a  charmed  life, — 
my  future  uncertain,  I  am  afraid  dark  to  fleshly  CVLS, 
yet  causing  me  little  solicitude, —  my  garden  of  souls 
running  to  weeds,  at  least  for  all  culture  of  mine,  yet  I 
have  no  sense  of  burdensome  responsibilities.  Do  not 
suppose  these  feelings  are  uninterrupted,  or  that  I  have 
come  to  them  without  struggles.  If  you  ask  of  my 
health,  it  is  good,  —  my  throat  scarcely  better,  yet  will- 
ing to  improve  when  I  give  it  perfect  rest You 

have  sometimes  said  I  wrote  nothing  as  if  I  was  married. 
Why  should  I  ?  Let  that  speak  for  itself.  My  wife  is 
a  white  dove.  Do  you  suppose  I  have  been  a  minister 
so  long  without  any  plans?  My  old  problem  of  the 
Church  bides  with  me  yet.  Something  must  be  done. 
These  things  I  want  to  attempt :  Free  communion, 
social  life,  and  benevolent  action  in  the  Church.  What 
have  you  to  say  about  this  ?  I  have  a  definite  plan  of 
action,  if  I  am  permitted  to  act  again.  '  The  earthly 
tabernacle  weigheth  down  the  mind  that  nurseth  upon 
many  things ' ;  and  so,  good  night. 

"  I  think  we  try  to  do  too  many  things.  Do  you 
know  of  any  minister  who  seems  so  far  to  have  realized 
his  ideal  as  would  content  you  ?  What  is  the  reason  of 
this  poverty  of  achievement  ?  It  tempts  one  to  go  back 
to  the  ideal  of  self-culture,  in  which  all  duty  is  resolved 


MEMOIR.  47 

into   living   out  one's  self. My  two  great  aims 

were,  to  get  at  the  young  men,  and  to  awaken  the  sen- 
timents of  religion.  The  practical  side  of  Christianity 
had  been  well  developed  ;  people  needed  the  spiritual 
principle,  —  the  feeling  of  the  heart.  I  have  had  no 
church  accessions,  —  but  one  baptism.  Can  nothing  be 
done  to  save  these  two  precious  symbols  ?  Then  in 
speculation  I  find  no  certain  or  confident  resting-place, 
—  content  even  to  get  an  olive-branch  'of  promise,  tes- 
tifying that  somewhere  beneath  the  turbulent  waters  of 
controversy  there  is  dry  land  enough  to  rest  one's  sole 
upon.  I  ask  my  venerable  brethren  of  this  and  that, 
and  they  are  uncertain  and  wavering  as  myself.  Some- 
times I  want  to  live  a  Methusalean  life  ;  —  sometimes,  if 
I  only  were  concerned,  I  would  like  to  die  to-morrow. 
If  I  cannot  preach  this  winter,  what  shall  I  do  ?  Can  I 
write  for  anything  to  get  money  ?  If  I  have  to  give 
up  my  profession,  what  can  I  do  r  I  am  trying  to  learn 
to  saw  wood  in  case  of  an  emergency.  Do  you  pity 
me  ?  I  am  sorry  for  that.  Doth  the  Lord  '•pity  his 
children '  1  I  trow  not ;  or  if  he  does,  it  is  as  a  father 
pitieth  his  child,  who  cries  for  the  red  hot  poker  which 
he  in  mercy  denies  him.  Don't  suppose  I  am  indiffer- 
ent to  the  suspension,  or  perhaps  the  destruction,  of  all 
my  hopes  and  plans  ;  but  I  know  that  the  true  man 
'  shall  not  much  remember  the  days  of  his  life,  for  God 
answereth  him  in  the  joy  of  his  heart.'  Will  my  optim- 
ism serve  me  when  the  trial  comes  ?  Do  I  seem  fool- 
ish ?  1  never  felt  so  wise.  Unnatural  ?  I  was  never 
more  unaffectedly  sincere.  These  few  days  past,  I  have 
seemed  beautiful  to  myself,  like  the  autumn  woods  ;  or 


48  MEMOIR. 

like  a  glowing  coal  all  alive.  Yet  I  have  done  nothing 
but  revel  in  the  joy  of  my  musings,  questioning  all  the 
while  if  the  life  that  seemed  ready  to  gush  out  of  me 
ought  not  to  be  bestowed  somewhere  to  some  purpose. 
But  Nature  seemed  to  say,  '  No,  let  the  sponge  drink  in 
as  it  will  from  this  fountain,  —  don't  squeeze  it.' 

"  Then  your  idea  that  I  had  '  derogatory  views '  of 
the  minister's  work  and  position.  Never  did  I  estimate 
them  so  highly,  —  regard  them  so  reverently.  Yet  I 
know  I  am  a  true  minister  to  not  more  than  a  dozen  of 
my  people,  and  how  can  I  be  satisfied  with  this  ?  Xo, 
it  was  not  that  the  aim  did  not  seem  to  be  great  and 
high  enough  '  to  fill  an  angel's  heart,'  but  the  beggar- 
liness  of  our  poor  achievements  I  was  groaning  over. 

"  My  love  'and  hopes  to .  When  I  see  her,  I 

think  sickness  is  a  beautiful  and  almost  coveted  experi- 
ence. I  know  the  good  God  never  cheats  us,  but  gives 
us  always  so  much  for  so  much  ;  and  when  the  poor 
body  pines  and  aches,  and  languishes,  the  spirit  is  often- 
times full-fed  and  developing  new  energies  and  more 
divine  powers.  Many  of  the  fairest  flowers  sow  them- 
selves by  darting  their  seeds,  arrow-like,  into  the  soil 
where  they  germinate." 

September  24.  —  "  I  do  not  know  that  you  know  from 
your  own  experience,  as  I  do,  how  fresh  and  real  the 
first  spring  of  a  religious  life  is,  —  a  new  birth  of  the 
soul.  But  with  most,  the  freshness  of  that  living  growth 
soon  passes  away,  and  having  brought  themselves  up  to 
about  the  average  standard  of  those  who  are  called  good 
Christians  around  them,  they  halt  there,  or  ever  after  go 
on  vacillating  between  good  and  ill.  But  mark,  for  illus- 


MEMOIR. 


49 


tration,  the  rapid  growth  of  a  new-converted  man,  —  or 
say  a  Washingtonian.  If  he  could  go  on  for  a  lifetime 
as  in  the  first  year,  what  a  great  man  he  would  make ! 
And  in  a  religious  sense,  a  true  man  can  always  find 
habits  as  dark,  elements  that  seem  as  base  and  low,  to 
emancipate  himself  from,  as  that  of  drunkenness.  But 
our  plans  of  growth  and  progress  have  a  finiteness 
about  them  that  spoils  us.  We  get  to  a  certain  point, 
and  then  our  life  becomes  a  thing  of  custom,  fashion,  or 
what  not,  —  loses  its  living,  internal  character.  But  if 
every  day's  life  could  be  from  within,  —  if  God  could 
always  act  through  us,  and  the  Divine  be  a  perennial 
spring  within  us,  what  nobleness  might  we  aspire  to  ! 
Is  it  all  a  dream  ?  has  the  fiat  gone  forth  that  no  man 
shall  realize  his  plans  and  aims  ?  Then  were  it  better 
to  die  than  live  !  For  to  follow,  like  the  old  post-horses, 
an  ear  of  corn,  day  in  and  day  out,  and  never  overtake 
it,  or  approximate  towards  it,  is  a  life  mean  and  miser- 
able, not  worth  the  living.  But  how  to  find  Him  whom 
neither  height,  nor  breadth,  nor  depth  can  reach,  but 
who  is  never  far  from  every  one  of  us  ?  Were  I  to 
define  the  process,  I  would  say,  First,  sift  down  your  own 
motives,  and  make  them  as  pure  as  possible,  —  nay, 
determine  that  the  great  question,  the  only  question  of 
life,  shall  be, '  Lord,  what  wilt  thou  have  me  to  do  ?'  And 
secondly,  use  the  means  of  religious  growth,  —  the  old- 
fashioned  rules  of  devotional  culture,  —  meditation,  self- 
examination,  prayer.  Alas  that  our  desire  should  be, 
not  devotion  itself,  but  the  good  that  comes  of  it !  I 
cannot  say  what  another  should  do,  but  I  would  say,  Let 
him  rejoice  and  thank  God  who  in  sincerity  and  fulness 
4 


50  MEMOIR. 

of  heart  can  daily  kneel  down  and  commune  with  the 
Infinite ;  and  if  any  consecrating  power  of  habit,  of 
times  and  seasons,  of  thoughtful  meditation,  can  bring 
to  him  one  truthful,  yearning  aspiration  after  the  Father, 
let  him  cling  to  that  as  the  dearest  portion  and  joy  of 
his  soul,  the  promise  of  his  progress  and  prosperity, 
the  talisman  of  his  inward  peace." 

Towards  the  end  of  September,  he  resumed  his 
labors  at  home  ;  taking  the  physician's  counsel,  "  to 
go  to  preaching,  and  provoke  his  throat  to  get  better 
or  worse."  He  encountered  very  cheerfully  some 
threatening  symptoms,  and  laid  out  a  large  work  for 
the  future.  His  own  thoughts  and  recent  experience 
he  Hoped  to  embody  in  a  series  of  "  Letters  to  the 
Sick,"  —  doubting  only  "  whether  I,  who  need  to 
fill  up  the  reservoir  of  thought,  and  leave  the  waters 
to  settle  into  stillness  and  purity,  can  afford  or  shall 
do  well  to  take  off  the  cover,  and  let  the  scanty  sup- 
ply, already  too  much  taxed,  evaporate  still  further." 
His  "  great  Church  movement"  he  hoped  to  begin 
with  the  opening  of  another  year.  And,  up  to 
the  limit  which  his  state  of  health  allowed,  he  seems 
to  have  been  busily  engaged  in  all  the  ordinary  cares 
of  his  office. 

But  Providence  had  other  things  in  store  for  him, 
and  a  deeper  sorrow  than  any  he  had  undergone  as 


MEMOIR. 


yet.  The  discipline  which  had  compelled  him  to 
look  sickness  and  pain,  and  the  prospect  of  early 
death,  steadily  in  the  face,  had  been  only  the  prepa- 
ration for  what  was  yet  to  follow.  On  the  3d  of 
December,  his  wife  died,  leaving  an  infant,  a  few 
days  old,  to  his  sole  charge.  It  was  with  a  peculiarly 
fond,  tender,  trusting  affection,  that  he  had  always 
spoken  and  thought  of  her.  Usefulness  and  a  happy 
home,  he  had  told1  her  long  before,  were  the  only 
two  things  he  had  to  live  for.  And,  in  his  affection- 
ate and  sensitive  nature,  this  sentiment  formed  the 
invisible  centre,  about  which  his  thoughts  and  plans 
revolved, —  the  silent  and  gentle  constraining  power, 
that  maintained  the  rest  in  balance.  And  it  could 
not  receive  so  sudden  and  rude  a  shock,  — however 
it  might  be  met  with  manly  resignation  and  Christian 
trust,  —  without  deranging  permanently,  in  some 
measure,  the  healthy  and  harmonious  action  of  his 
mind.  The  effect  was  more  deep  and  lasting,  that 
it  was  so  powerfully  controlled,  to  all  outward  seem- 
ing, by  conscience  and  will,  and  an  active  religious 
fancy.  And  the  shadow  of  this  great  sorrow  deep- 
ened as  time  went  on,  only  to  be  very  gradually  sup- 
planted by  the  later  light  of  hope. 

The  few  expressions  he  gave  of  this  early  feeling 


52  MEMOIR. 

are  tender  and  beautiful.  Their  long  and  intimate 
connection  had  been  to  him  a  precious  privilege,  and 
an  untroubled  dream  of  love.  "  You  know,"  he 
says,  "  how  pure  and  heavenly  our  love  was,  and 
how  her  innocence  and  saintliness  had  hallowed 
and  refined  my  more  earthly  affections.  Time  and 
again  it  made  me  weep  to  think  how  pure  she  was." 
Wife  of  a  year,  and  mother  of  a  week,  when  dan- 
ger seemed  past,  and  hope  was  confident  and  strong, 
she,  was  taken  suddenly,  and  left  him  sorrowing  and 
alone.  From  his  words  of  tender  and  touching  res- 
ignation we  gather  the  appropriate  and  only  needful 
comment  on  this  mournful  chapter  of  his  experience. 
We  see  how  faithfully  he  had  learned  to  apply  his 
own  words  of  consolation  and  trust. 

Boston,  December  6,  1845.  —  "  The  Providence  that 
made  me  a  father  has  left  me  a  bereaved  and  deso- 
late husband.  My  white  dove  has  flown  upward,  yet 
still  she  cometh  again  at  times,  to  bring  an  answer  to 
my  prayers,  and  minister  strength  to  my  fainting  heart. 
You  will  not  wonder  that  I  have  thus  far  been  calm  and 
strong.  I  know  not  yet  the  heaviness  of  the  trial,  and 
I  have  felt  from  the  first  her  presence  sustaining  me. 
How  I  shall  bear  it  I  do  not  know.  I  hope,  with  Chris- 
tian serenity  and  cheerfulness.  I  trust  to  live  so  high 
and  pure  that  she  shall  be  to  me  an  ever-living  pres- 
ence. Night  before  last,  when  I  went  to  bed,  there 


MEMOIR.  53 

came  strange,  wild  fancies,  and  half-delirious  images,  — 
sometimes  harsh  voices,  and  then  her  gentle  and  tender 
tones.  I  was  not  asleep,  I  was  not  trying  to  think,  but 
these  things  seemed  to  belong  to  the  senses  rather  than 
the  mind.  The  last  thing  I  remember,  I  saw  a  great 
harp,  and  it  seemed  as  if  it  were  my  heart,  and  there 
stood  by  two  furies  and  clutched  at  its  strings  with  their 
claw-like  fingers  as  if  they  would  tear  it  in  pieces.  But 
then  a  soft  hand  was  laid  across  them  so  gently  that  it 
scarcely  seemed  to  touch,  and  the  chords  were  still  and 
calm  as  a  waveless  sea,  —  and  I  fell  asleep. 

"  Yesterday  was  her  funeral  at  Dorchester.  I  was 
happy,  and  could  not  help  feeling  grateful  for  the  beau- 
tiful day.  I  contrasted  it  with  the  bright,  clear  evening 
of  our  marriage  a  year  ago,  and  it  seemed  fitting  that 
this  should  be  brighter  and  more  glorious.  That  was  a 
marriage  of  earth, — this  was  a  bridal  of  heaven.  It 
seemed  fitting  that  Nature  should  put  on  her  white 
robes  and  her  diamond  ornaments  when  so  pure  a 
spirit  took  its  flight.  I  felt  that  God  honored  me  in 
calling  me  thus  to  give  her  to  him.  With  reverential 
joy  I  could  almost  say,  God  taketh  her  not  away,  but 
permits  me  to  give  her  up,  so  that  I  may  receive  her 
again ;  and  thus  does  he  make  our  affections  immortal 
when  he  makes  their  objects  immortal. 

"I  have  no  right  to  complain, —  all  reasons  to  be 
thankful.  Had  I  loved  her  less,  I  could  not  bear  it  so 
well.  But  these  years  of  our  union  have  blessed  me 
with  more  and  fuller  happiness  than  often  comes  in  a 
long  life.  Blessed  be  their  memory  and  hers,  in  min- 
istering sweet  influences  and  sanctifying  hopes,  and 


54  MEMOIR. 

may  God  help  me  to  show  in  my  own  example  the 
serenity  of  faith  that  I  have  preached  to  others  as  the 
Christian's  duty  and  privilege." 

Leominster,  December  17,  1845.  —  "True,  I  have 
stood  face  to  face  with  stern  realities,  and  the  angel  of 
'Discipline  is  bruising  from  my  heart  the  black  blood  of 
selfishness  ;  but  the  blessed  angel  of  my  love  stands  by 
me,  also,  to  pour  the  oil  of  healing  on  the  smarting 
wound.  You  know  I  have  had  all  possible  consola- 
tions,—  the  blessed  memories  of  seven  years  of  happi- 
ness, full  and  perfect  enough  to  make  me  all  my  life 
thankful  to  God,  bring  the  future  what  it  may,  —  the 
very  tenderness  and  fulness  of  sympathy  from  many  a 
heart,  —  and  what  is  dearest  of  all,  next  to  my  faith  in 
immortality,  a  constant  sense  —  I  was  going  to  say  a 
consciousness  —  of  the  presence  of  the  departed.  It  is 
not  sight,  nor  sound,  nor  touch  ;  and  yet  there  are  times 
when  I  see  and  hear  and  feel  her  presence ;  and  now  I 
know  that  I  believe  what  I  was  not  quite  sure  before 
would  bear  such  a  test. 

"  And  as  at  such  times  one  is  brought  nearer  to  the 
spiritual  world,  and  almost  comes  to  feel  that  its  atmos- 
phere is  around  him,  and  a  vision  only  a  little  more 
purified  would  give  him  actual  sight  and  communion 
with  its  inhabitants,  the  prayer  rises  from  the  heart, 
that  he  might  evermore  dwell  there  ;  and  so,  living 
henceforth  in  and  for  eternity,  whatever  is  merely  of 
time  should  be  indifferent  to  him,  and  '  not  enjoyment 
and  not  sorrow  be  his  destined  end  and  way.' 

"  And  then  the  soul  does  feel  it  a  sort  of  privilege 
and  glory  to  be  honored  with  trial,  and,  gathering  itself 


MEMOIR.  55 

up  in  its  conscious  eternity,  feels  that  neither  its  love 
nor  the  joy  it  gives  can  ever  die  ;  and,  looking  forward, 
it  beholds  that  coming  time  when  the  trials  and  sorrows 
of  this  mortal  life  shall  seem  but  as  clouds  that  on  a 
summer's  day  flit  over  the  sun's  disk  and  pass  away. 
And  so  it  is  strong. 

"  It  is  very  pleasant  to  me  thus  to  speak  to  you  in 
the  perfect  freedom  of  confidence  ;  for,  kind  and  hearty 
as  are  the  friends  around  me,  there  is  no  one  who  can 
fully  understand  my  feelings,  and  what  is  sometimes 
spoken  for  consolation  seems  trifling  or  profane  ;  like 
the  well-meant  remark  of  one  man,  who  told  me  '  it 
was  a  great  mercy  these  things  wore  off  in  time,'  —  as 
if  the  next  best  thing  to  the  presence  of  those  we  love 
were  to  forget  them.  So  I  am  shut  up  alone  with  my 
own  ideal  and  my  ministering  spirits. 

"  There  is  one  thing  that  I  feel  deeply  in  closing  this 
letter,  —  that,  to  a  stranger's  eye,  and  perhaps  to  your  too 
partial  friendship,  it  shows  me  higher  than  I  am ;  and 
a  fear,  too,  cojnes  upon  me,  that  I  shall  fall  back  from 
what  is  only  a  mount  of  vision  to  me,  and  not  the  plane 
of  my  daily  walk." 

December  31.  — "  My  health  is  not  very  good.  Liv- 
ing the  last  month  in  a  state  of  extreme  nervous  excite- 
ment, and  compelled  to  do  a  good  deal  of  mental  labor, 
I  have  got  worn  down.  I  hardly  expect  to  stay  here 
another  year.  My  throat  is  troublesome  again,  though 
I  use  it  as  much  as  I  want  to.  It  would  be  hard  to  go 
away,  yet  you  will  not  wonder  that  all  other  trials  seem 
light  to  me  now.  And  though  life  still  looks  cheerful 
and  happy  to  me,  and  the  world  is  as  far  from  being  a 


56  MEiMOIR. 

'  vale  of  tears '  as  ever,  yet  you  can  understand  how 
everything  but  duty  should  seem  almost  indifferent  to 
me,  —  everything  but  duty  and  death.  Sternly  beau- 
tiful stands  the  former  to  me,  and  I  feel  consecrated 
anew  in  the  baptism  of  sorrow  ;  but  O,  how  welcome 
at  any  moment  were  the  latter,  —  how  great  a  privilege 
if  to-night  I  could  lie  down  in  my  last  sleep,  to  wake 
in  the  light  of  her  smile,  and  the  morning  of  her  eter- 
nal blessedness ! " 

v  January  27,  1846.  —  "I  am  happy,  for  everything 
is  indifferent  to  me.  Duty  is  sacred,  life  is  beautiful, 
eternity  dear, —  more  sacred  and  beautiful  and  dear 
than  ever  before.  I  am  happy  in  isolation.  What  I 
dread  most  is  that  I  should  wish  to  live  again ;  what  I 
desire  most  is  to  die.  But  I  am  cheerful,  joyous  even, 
for  I  am  not  alone.  The  sunlight,  with  its  blessed  rays, 
looks  in  at  my  windows,  and  it  is  more  beautiful  than 
ever,  for  God's  smile  and  her's  are  both  in  it.  The  fir 
trees,  blossoming  in  snow-wreaths,  wave  their  branches 
in  the  wind,  and  I  love  them,  because  she  saw  and  ad- 
mired their  beauty.  Home  is  dearer  to  me  than  ever, 
because  it  was 'her  home  ;  yea,  it  is  her  home  still. 
And  I  seem  to  myself  a  being  better  and  more  sacred 
and  higher,  because  one  who  has  gone  up  loves  me. 

"  I  had  almost  rather  my  little  child,  so  unspeakably 
dear  to  me,  were  with  its  mother.  I  am  afraid  it  will 
make  me  wish  to  live.  I  am  afraid  she  will  want  it 
there. 

"  Every  body  here  wonders  to  see  me  appear  just  as 
I  always  have.  I  dare  say  many  suppose  I  am  almost 
heartless,  —  a  very  stock.  All  that  is  perfectly  indif- 


MEMOIR.  57 

ferent  to  me  ;  yet  I  wonder  at  my  cheerfulness  just  as 
much  as  other  people  do." 

"  I  well  remember,"  writes  a  friend,  "  how  pain- 
fully delightful  was  our  visit  to  Hiram,  a  few  weeks 
after  his  wife's  death  ;  how  he  met  us  with  all  the 
warmth  of  his  nature,  and  discharged  so  simply, 
and  so  aflectingly,  to  us,  all  the  offices  of  host 
and  hostess  ;  and  how  anxious  he  seemed  to  be  that 
we  should  find  everything  as  comfortable  .as  if  she 
could  have  welcomed  us.  He  lighted  a  fire  in  the 
parlour,  saying,  as  he  did  so,  with  a  sad  but  cheer- 
ful smile,  that  it  seemed  almost  wicked  to  light  that 
fire  there.  Elizabeth  had  placed  the  wood  in  order, 
ready  for  kindling,  two  months  before,  and  he  had 
not  brought  himself  till  then  to  light  it.  He  had 
hung  up  in  his  chamber,  just  after  her  safe  confine- 
ment, (as  they  thought,)  a  beautiful  engraving  of  the 
Madonna  and  Child  ;  and  he  said,  as  we  entered  the 
room,  that  at  first  he  could  not  bear  to  have  it  hang 
there  after  her  death.  It  seemed  as  if  it  had  no 
business  there,  and  his  first  impulse  was  to  lay  it  in 
the  bottom  of  his  trunk,  never  to  be  taken  out. 
These  are  trifling  incidents  ;  but  they  illustrate  the 
exceeding  warmth  of  his  nature,  and  show  how 
bitter  must  have  been  the  struggle  to  maintain  the 


58  MEMOIR. 

beautiful  calmness,  and  even  cheerfulness,  that  so 
astonished  and  charmed  us  all." 

These  little  incidents,  and  the  record  of  so  trying 
an  experience,  will  not  be  without  their  interest  to 
those  who  knew  Mr.  Withington  as  a  friend.  They 
will  know  there  was  nothing  overstrained  or  insin- 
cere in  his  transcripts  from  his  own  feelings  and 
the  interpretation  of  his  life's  experience  ;  and  it 
will  be  gratifying  to  them  to  trace  the  deep  and 
lasting  impression  on  his  mind,  of  an  event  so 
powerfully  forcing  the  tide  of  hidden  affections  and 
emotions  from  its  ordinary  channel.  Few  persons 
have  spoken  so  familiarly  as  he,  from  his  early 
years,  of  spiritual  things  as  near  and  present.  To 
few  was  the  boundary  between  this  life  and  that 
to  come  so  thin  and  transparent,  or  the  sentiment 
so  habitual  and  constant,  "I  am  not  to  be,  but  / 
am,  immortal."  And  so  the  three  great  means  of 
human  discipline — labor,  pain,  and  sorrow  —  were 
alike  sanctified  to  his  willing  and  receptive  spirit  by 
the  immediate  touch  of  the  breath  of  Heaven. 

His  words,  spoken  long  before,  recur  in  this  con- 
nection with  added  meaning  :  "  The  ideal  of  pleas- 
ure is  gone  ;  its  successor,  the  ideal  of  aesthetics, 
has  vanished  also  ;  and  now  nothing  is  left  but  the 


MEMOIR.  59 

ideal  of  action."  To  this  he  now  earnestly  and 
manfully  addressed  himself.  His  "  great  Church 
movement "  he  had  designated  as  his  task  for  the 
opening  year.  His  views  of  it  were  so  large  and 
general,  and  at  the  same  time  so  specific  and  dis- 
tinct, that  he  found  very  few  who  could  give  him 
the  aid  of  an  understanding  sympathy.  To  a  friend 
he  writes  :  — 

January  28,  1846.  —  "I  am  particularly  desirous  to 
see  and  to  talk  with  you,  now  that  I  have  the  gift  of 
utterance  again  ;  and  the  rather,  because  I  found  more 
sympathy  and  interest  in  my  Church  movement,  on  your 
part,  than  any  body  else  had  ever  exhibited,  (except 
one,)  and,  of  all  the  brethren,  you  alone  have  given  me 
any  encouragement,  or  seemed  to  have  any  faith  in  the 
attempt.  Well,  I  have  plunged  in  medias  res,  if  that 
which  is  so  intangible  as  the  Church  can  be  said  to 
have  a  substantive  existence,  or  a  'midst'  to  it.  I  have 
had  two  social  meetings,  at  which  I  conversed,  —  sixty 
or  seventy  persons  being  present ;  and  we  have  chosen 
a  committee  to  report  '  on  the  present  condition  of  the 
Church,  and  any  measures  which  may  promote  its  wel- 
fare and  efficiency.' 

"  This  is  the  matter  nearest  my  thought  at  present, 
so  I  have  written  about  it.  You  will  know  that  at  heart 
other  things  are  pressing.  And  I  have  no  need  to  say, 
that,  for  the  many  words  of  kindness  that  have  been 
most  welcome  and  cheering  to  its  desolateness,  I  thank 
God  and  those  who  have  bestowed  them." 


60  MEMOIR.  » 

A  part  of  the  correspondence  which  followed  with 
a  friend,  who  did  not  enter  so  hopefully  into  some  of 
the  details  of  his  projected  movement,  may  serve 
to  present  more  clearly  the  precise  point  at  which 
he  aimed. 

February  3,  1846.  — "  I  take  '  the  Church  '  as  Prov- 
idence and  the  community  find  it  for  me,  and  speak 
honestly  of  every  form  of  Christian  influence  that  comes 
to  us  in  a  regular  way,  as  the  Church.  Neither  do  I 
care  to  mark  out  a  supposed  scheme  of  duties  for  the 
organization  called  by  that  name.  I  follow  the  tenden- 
cies of  the  system  of  things  I  find  ready  to  my  hand. 
If  benevolent  action  can  be  most  conveniently  and 
effectively  carried  on  by  '  the  Church,'  very  well.  If 
by  a  '  society,'  or  '  sewing  circle,'  or  '  benevolent  asso- 
ciation,' very  well  again.  And  if  the  organized  body 
meet  (and,  so  far  as  I  see,  can  meet)  only  for  religion, 
meditation,  and  communion,  then  I  do  the  best  I  can  in 
that  way,  seek  to  stamp  the  impression  deepest  where  I 
can,  and  am  content.  If  I  had  a  Church  to  make  all 
new,  and  its  work  to  prescribe,  I  don't  know  how  I 
should  prescribe  it.  Meanwhile,  I  am  thankful  to  be 
saved  that  hazardous  responsibility.  I  confess  to  a 
little  impatience  at  having  anything  put  upon  me,  or 
even  hinted  at,  else  than  the  quiet  gathering  up  of  the 
threads  of  religious  and  moral  influence  that  lie  scatter- 
ed about  me,  and  the  patient  weaving  of  them  into  my 
fabric  of  duty  and  faith.  If  you  ask  me  what  '  the 
Church '  is,  I  do  not  pretend  to  explain,  though  I  have 


MEMOIR. 


61 


my  notions.  If  you  ask  what  the  Church  is  Aere,  I 
know  pretty  well,  —  at  least  I  think  I  do,  —  and  that  is 
enough  for  me."  To  this  he  replies  :  — 

February  3, 1846.  —  "Your  remarks  upon  the  Church 
are  just  as  unsatisfactory  as  everything  else  upon  the 
same  topic  ;  and  if  I  had  leisure,  I  should  like  to  write 
you  half  a  ream  —  no,  I  mean  a  quire  —  upon  it.    You 
know  it  has  possessed  me  a  good  while,  and  I  cannot  get 
rid  of  it  by  prayer  or  fasting,  nor  will  it  be  exorcised  by 
any  such  intangible  statements  as  those  in  your  letter. 
The  '  obfuscation '  remains,  and  you  will  not  be  able  to 
remove  it,  without  an  increase  of  faith.     The  more  I 
think  about  it,  the  more  I  don't  see  what  the  Church  is, 
or  what  can  be  done  with  it.     The  question  is  as  impor- 
tant to  my  mind  as  this  :  Are  we  to  labor  for  the  per- 
petuity of  the  Church  as  an  organization,  —  Church,  or 
no  Church  ?     It  seems  to  me  one  who  does  not  see  the 
matter  in  this  light  is  blind  to  the  signs  of  the  times. 
Who  talks  about  the  Church  ?     Who  pays  it  any  atten- 
tion ?    Who  joins  it  ?     If  it  be  worth  nothing,  then  let  us 
'help  tear  it  down  as  a  cumberer  of  the  ground,  or  at 
least  suffer  it  quietly  to  die  out.     If  it  have  any  value, 
let  us  see  what  it  is,  and  how  it  is  to  be  sustained  and 
made  efficient.     These  seem  to  me  not  only  practical, 
but  pressing  inquiries.     I  believe  I  have  made  you  ac- 
quainted with  all  my  movements  till  datum.     The  last 
thing  done  was  to  choose  a  committee  to  report  on  the 
present  condition  of  the  Church,  and  any  measures  for 
promoting  its  prosperity  and  efficiency." 

So  far  as  the  practical  features  of  his  plan  were 


62  MEMOIR. 

clearly  defined,  they  seem  to  have  been  these. 
Taking  advantage  of  the  recognized  central  Church 
organization,  he  would  make  it  the  centre  and  source 
of  all  religious  and  charitable  action.  There  should 
be  as  it  were  a  league  among  all  the  forms  of  Chris- 
tian action,  so  that  each  should  have  a  real  connec- 
tion with  the  Church  proper.  Thus,  a  committee 
was  chosen  "  to  seek  out  the  necessitous,  and  apply 
the  means  for  their  relief."  The  Board  of  Direc- 
tors of  the  Ladies'  Charitable  Society  should  con- 
sist in  part  of  Church  members,  selected  by  the 
Church  itself.  The  Sunday  School  should  be  dis- 
tinctly understood  to  be  a  school  of  training  for  the 
religious  character,  and  with  the  view  of  adding 
steadily  to  the  Church's  strength.  In  the  School  he 
was  laborious  and  indefatigable,  seeking  out  and  urg- 
ing reluctant  scholars,  holding  teachers'  meetings, 
addressing  the  children  frequently,  and  taking  an 
active  part  in  the  Sunday  School  movements  of  the 
county.  Of  this  large  circle  of  operations  he  him- 
self was,  of  course,  the  centre  and  the  head.  "  He 
was  what  I  term  a  live  minister ,"  writes  one  of  his 
parishioners.  His  labors  in  visiting  were  very  great, 
—  amounting,  the  first  year,  to  five  hundred  and  fifty, 
and,  the  third,  to  eight  hundred,  parochial  visits.  To 


MEMOIR.  63 

the  sick  and  afflicted  he  was  very  attentive  ;  and  the 
nature  of  his  own  experience  had  opened  to  him 
avenues  of  approach  to  them,  and  made  him  pecu- 
liarly welcome  and  acceptable  as  a  messenger  of 
consolation.  Among  other  things,  he  founded  a 
"  minister's  library"  with  a  donation  of  fifty  dollars, 
from  a  bequest  made  him  by  one  of  his  parishioners, 
—  thirty  more  being  added  by  the  ladies  of  the  soci- 
ety. Many  of  the  details  of  his  pastoral  labors  will 
appear  in  the  course  of  his  letters  which  follow. 
Meanwhile,  it  will  be  interesting  to  trace  the  thread 
of  more  personal  and  private  feeling,  interrupted  for 
a  while  by  this  pressure  of  external  care. 

March  4,  1846.  —  "I  am  between  two  fires,  which- 
ever way  I  look,  but  am  not  consumed,  —  scarcely 
scorched.  Do  you  remember  how  in  the  furnace  there 
was  a  fourth,  like  unto  the  Son  of  Man  ?  Fable  as  it 
is,  it  has  a  beautiful  significance.  Between  the  pressure 
of  outward  duty  and  inward  thought,  I  am  continually 
exhausted.  Yet  my  security  and  enjoyment  are  in  ac- 
tion, and  I  do  more  than  ever  I  have  done.  I  long  for 
more  quiet  and  leisure,  for  I  am  afraid  of  being  used  all 
up  intellectually  ;  besides,  you  know  partly  how  delight- 
ful is  the  liberty  to  stop  and  think,  and  to  have  time  for 
study.  I  would  fain  seek  a  quiet  and  a  smaller  place. 
On  the  other  hand,  duty  binds  me  here.  Never  a  man 
had  so  fine  a  chance  to  do  good  :  people  all  feel  more 


64  MEMOIR. 

than  kindly  —  tenderly  —  toward  me.  The  admiration 
makes  me  tremble,  for  it  cannot  last ;  but  the  lov e,  I 
think,  will.  But  what  I  am  gladdest  to  see  is  the  relig- 
ious interest  that  is  springing  up  here  and  there,  in  a 
very  quiet  and  natural  way,  —  some  few  young  people, 
too,  manifesting  it  and  their  confidence  toward  me  in  a 
very  pleasant  manner.  Then,  again,  here  is  the  dear 
home,  —  so  sacred,  so  blissful  still,  —  my  only  home  :  if 
I  should  be  forced  to  leave  it,  I  should  be  an  outcast  in 
the  world.  Everywhere  else  I  am  desolate.  As  I  have 
just  written  to  a  friend,  'Dorchester  is  too  populous  for 
me,  —  too  thick-peopled  with  memories  ;  its  very  way- 
side stones  are  burial  monuments  of  hours  of  gladness 
flown  ;  and  not  till  they  have  had  their  baptism  in  Sor- 
row's tears  can  Faith  entwine  them  with  the  flower- 
wreath  that  tells  of  a  resurrection.  But  I  know  that 
spring  will  come  again,  and  the  flowers.  And  the  dewy 
tears  of  Sorrow's  night  shall  give  a  fresher  verdure  where 
they  fall,  —  a  chastened  but  perennial  beauty.' 

"  But  you  see  how  dear  this  home  is  to  me,  —  what 
ties  of  love  and  memory  it  would  sunder  to  leave  it. 
Then,  too,  I  am  afraid,  if  the  charm  of  constrained  ac- 
tivity were  broken,  I  should  sink  down.  But  the  chances 
are  nine  to  ten  that  I  must  go,  and  that  speedily.  For 
five  weeks  my  throat  has  been  growing  steadily  and 
desperately  bad.  My  general  health,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  unusually  good,  which  makes  it  more  discouraging. 
One  Sunday  I  preached  but  half  a  day,  and  you  know  I 
should  not  have  stopped  for  a  small  reason.  You  know 
I  have  always  felt,  that,  if  I  broke  down  again,  it  was 
better  for  me  and  for  the  people  that  I  should  go.  Am 


MEMOIR.  65 

I  not  betweert  too  fires  ?  But  do  not  think  I  am  distress- 
ed, or  even  anxious.  The  Son  of  Man  is  with  me,  and 
the  Infinite  Father.  I  can  go  in  peace  where  I  am  led." 

May  29.  —  "I  have  had  many  thoughts,  or  rather  a 
daily  recurring  thought,  of  writing  you,  from  the  mo- 
ment I  heard  of  your  new  joy  and 's  safety.  It 

awoke  in  me  more  of  personal  feeling  than  I  am  wont 
to  experience ;  for  I  have  been  sensible  of  late  of  a 
paralysis  of  the  heart,  and  at  present  dare  not  say  that 
I  love  any  living  being.  And  could  I  not  remembe^how 
my  heart,  so  calm  and  still  now,  had  leaped  in  the 
ecstasy  of  a  paradise  morning,  in  the  promised  fulfil- 
ment of  a  hope  so  strangely  prominent  and  abiding  with- 
me  for  years,  and  how,  when  that  new  song  was  put 
into  it,  its  utterance  was,  '  O  God,  I  thank  thee,  that, 
once  and  for  all  eternity,  thou  hast  made  me  a  father  '  ? 

"  It  is  inevitable  that  my  thoughts  should  thus  revert 
to  myself,  and  I  thank  you  that  I  feel  the  liberty  to  give 
them  this  free  utterance.  Be  assured  my  sympathy  in 
your  gladness  is  none  the  less,  perhaps  all  the  greater, 
that  it  has  called  up  so  vividly  my  own  sorrow.  Nor 
until  this  moment  has  any  thought  of  contrast  crossed 
my  mind.  And  it  comes  now  with  no  painful  or  repin- 
ing feeling.  For  night  is  beautiful  as  day,  and  the 
cloud,  no  less  than  the  sunbeam,  comes  laden  with  a 
blessing. 

"  I  would  gladly  speak  of  myself,  for  scarcely  from 
my  deepest  life  do  I  utter  a  word  to  any  man.  But  I 
am  become  a  fathomless  mystery  to  my  own  eye.  To 
others  I  am  a  perfect  mirror ;  and  my  own  introspective 
glance  can  discern  scarcely  more  than  the  landscape 
5 


66  MEMOIR. 

that  surrounds  me,  though  in  the  back-ground  dim  shad- 
ows dance,  and  under  my  feet  I  hear  faint  murmuring 
echoes,  and  music  soothingly  solemn,  —  sometimes  of 
glad  melody,  and  then  dying  away  in  a  plaintive  wail  of 
infinite  sadness.  But  I  am  in  such  a  whirl  of  constant 
and  laborious  activity,  that  it  is  only  for  a  brief  moment 
now  and  then  that  I  am  permitted  to  enter  this  sacred 
sanctuary.  For  the  most  part,  I  live  a  purely  unselfish 
life.  There  is  no  self.  I  am  a  mirror,  and  God  holds 
meii  his  hand  as  he  walks,  and  I  am  gladly  conscious 
of  the  universe  of  beauty  that  is  thus  reflected  back  upon 
itself.  I  know  of  nothing  that  would  be  so  pleasant, 
and  I  think  so  beneficial,  as  to  have  you  come  and 
spend  some  days  with  me.  We  will  ride  and  walk  over 
our  beautiful  hills,  and  through  the  quiet  woods ;  and  as 
Elisha  put  his  eyes  upon  the  child's  eyes,  and  his  hands 
upon  the  child's  hands,  so  you  shall  bring  me  back  to 
life  and  consciousness  again.  But  wherefore  ?  for  is 
not  consciousness  susceptibility  of  suffering  ?  Only 
that  the  fact  of  speaking  as  I  have  seems  to  show  that 
the  time  for  such  return  has  come.  I  have  no  desire  to 
hasten  or  to  postpone  it,  but  am  sensible  of  an  uneasy 
and  almost  dissatisfied  feeling;  and  a  sense  of  a  destiny 
unfulfilled,  and  indistinct  glimpses  of  a  new  ideal  that  is 
yet  to  shape  itself,  seem  to  show  that  there  is  a  future 
in  this  life  for  which  I  am  to  gird  myself,  though  I 
have  desired  with  a  passionate  longing  that  it  might  not 
be  so. 

"  Who  wrote  that  article  on  Immortality  in  the  Ex- 
aminer ?  It  struck  me  peculiarly,  perhaps  from  my 
state  of  mind.  But  there  was  one  thought  with  which  I 


MEMOIR.  67 

would  have  concluded,  —  the  greatest  of  ail  thoughts, — 
the  consciousness  of  immortality,  the  realization  that 
so  comes  home  to  the  soul  at  times,  '  I  am  not  to  be, 
but  lam,  immortal.'  In  the  light  of  this  thought,  the  most 
beautiful  thing  in  the  universe  is  Duty,  and  the  next 
most  beautiful  is  Death.  Time  becomes  an  eternity,  of 
which  man  rises  to  be  a  king  and  a  god  ;  and  farther 
off,  in  a  dim  glory,  is  another  eternity,  in  which  we  are. 
enfolded  in  the  arms  of  an  infinite  love." 

June  25.  —  "  Seriously,  if  you  will  let  me  say  so, 
while  I  do  most  heartily  respect  and  admire  your  mode, 
I  can't  help  thinking  that  you  are  doing  just  what  I 
ought,  and  I  just  what  you  ought.  It  is  I  who  want 
'  solidity  and  depth,'  while  you,  perhaps,  need  more 
surface.  But  logic,  —  I  have  more  natural  love  of  it 
than  you  give  me  credit  for,  I  dare  say.  But  what  can 
it  do  ?  Its  sole  office  seems  to  me  to  account  to  the 
soul  for  itself.  Of  all  things  in  the  world,  reasoning  is 
the  most  unreasonable.  Your  perfect  system  of  things 
is  a  dream  more  visionary  than  /dare  cherish.  Is  not 
all  life  a  giving  up  of  old  plans  and  laying  out  of  new, 
to  be  themselves  in  turn  relinquished  by  the  time  the 
foundations  are  laid  ?  Logic  refutes  itself  in  every  cor- 
ner. There  is  n't  a  single  statement  or  principle  that 
does  not  become  an  absurdity  when  carried  out.  Sys- 
.tem  is  only  an  artificial  chaos  in  place  of  a  natural  one, 
and  science  itself  is  one  of  those  '  exquisite  ironies  of 
language,'  whose  exoteric  significance  indeed  is  knowl- 
edge, but  which,  exoterically,  can  only  mean  the  knowl- 
edge of  one's  utter  ignorance.  I  have  no  doubt,  that,  in 
all  these  things,  what  does  us  good  is  the  attempt,  rather 


68  MEMOIR. 

than  the  approximation.  Your  hope  of  working  some 
day  with  your  '  eyes  open  '  is  my  utter  despair.  The 
social  problem  is  awful,  but  not  more  so  than  a  hundred 
others.  The  way  to  shake  off  the  incubus  of  one  is  to 
find  another,  I  take  it 

"  I  lose  at  times  the  faith  that  I  am  of  the  least  con- 
sequence or  consideration  to  any  one,  and  few,  perhaps, 
.can  bear  that  feeling  so  ill  as  I.  I  live  a  helter-skelter 
sort  of  life,  that  keeps  me  busy,  and  almost  flurried,  and 
yet^eems  to  accomplish  little  and  leave  the  most  un- 
done. Yesterday,  for  example,  I  wrote  two  letters, 
made  three  calls,  and  read  children's  books  for  the  li- 
brary, which  took  up  the  morning.  In  the  afternoon, 
rode  thirteen  miles  to  call  on  sick  people,  and  visited 
four  families,  till  supper.  Evening,  made  one  call,  and 
read  library  books.  You  must  not  think  I  make  unnec- 
essary calls,  either.  To  do  my  best,  I  can  scarcely 
visit  the  sick,  infirm,  and  bereaved.  A  good  many  fam- 
ilies I  have  never  called  upon.  So  I  live  on,  in  this 
run-amuck  sort  of  life,  of  which  little  account  can  be 
given,  and  which  I  have  no  time  to  systematize.  I  am 
not  very  well,  and  almost  every  day  for  three  months 
the  problem  has  come  up,  whether  I  ought  not  to  go 
away  from  here,  half  a  man  as  I  am,  physically  and  in- 
tellectually, for  the  people's  good  and  my  own.  I 
should  almost  rejoice  at  some  indication  of  failure  or 
unpopularity,  as  opening  the  way  of  escape.  But  to 
leave  now  would  be  to  desert  duty  ;  and  indeed,  if  I 
were  strong  enough,  I  would  not  exchange  the  place  for 
any  in  Christendom. 

"  I  have  been  thinking  much  of  Peace  lately,  and 


MEMOIR.  69 

have  taken  very  strong  ground  in  a  sermon  against  all 
war.  Still,  I  am  not  insensible  of  the  difficulties  attend- 
ing the  position,  but  for  the  present  stick  there  with 
some  pertinacity.  Colonization,  too,  has  interested  me 
more  than  ever,  (I  don't  mean  Brook  Farm,  but  Libe- 
ria,) while  I  have  been  giving  some  heed  to  Free 
Trade,  in  which  an  interest  was  accidentally  called  up. 
Let  us  know  what  you  think  of  these  things,  as  also 
what  is  your  opinion  of  such  a  course  of  thought  as  all 
that  I  have  said  indicates.  You  can't  think  worse  of  it, 
for  all  purposes  of  healthy  personal  growth,  than  I  do. 
"As  for  my  Church  movement,  we  have  meetings 
which  are  well  attended,  (from  thirty-five  to  eighty,) 
and  rather  increase  in  interest.  I  have  got  a  change 
in  the  conditions  of  admission,  have  appointed  a  com- 
mittee, and  got  a  standing  fund  for  benevolent  action, 
and  have  already  distinctly  declared  the  communion 
free.  In  one  respect,  my  hopes  have  been,  thus  far, 
but  poorly  realized,  to  wit  :  in  the  accessions  made  to 
the  Church.  Still,  I  am  hopeful  in  this.  As  for  the 
Sunday  School,  I  hope  you  did  not  mean  to  express 
any  doubts  of  its  value  or  promise.  If  you  did,  come 
up  here  and  we  will  resolve  them.  We  have  weekly 
teachers'  meetings,  attended  by  from  thirty  to  forty, 
and  a  School  of  upwards  of  three  hundred  and  fifty, 
including  teachers  and  adult  classes.  About  thirty 
young  men  from  eighteen  to  twenty-five.  To  be  sure, 
I  do  not  estimate  our  success  in  this  way  ;  but  I  am  so 
fully  satisfied  of  the  great  capabilities  of  the  Sunday 
School  system,  that  I  have  had  serious  thoughts  of  pro- 
posing to  the  people  to  come  to  church  in  the  morning, 


70 


MEMOIR. 


and  all  stop  to  Sunday  School,  and  then  have  a  long 
intermission,  and  a  second  service  at  half-past  five.  I 
have  long  been  persuaded  that  the  world  is  to  be  mil- 
lenniumized  by  making  people  talk." 

July  21.  —  "  You  know  I  told  you  that  the  faith  which, 
in  early  life,  we  take  upon  trust  and  authority,  we  come 
to  doubt  and  question  afterwards.  We  ask  ourselves 
why  we  believe  this  and  that,  and  have  no  reason  to 
give.  So  we  go  back  and  start  anew,  feeling  our  way 
step  by  step.  We  answer  doubt  after  doubt,  and  settle 
principle  after  principle,  and  so  by  and  by  we  work  our 
way  back  to  our  childhood's  faith  again  ;  —  not  that  we 
believe  on  the  same  grounds,  but  because  we  have 
found  a  reason  for  belief.  And  this,  which  is  at  first  a 
faith  of  reasoning,  becomes  again  a  faith  of  trust.  We 
believed  at  first  tremblingly,  as  it  were ;  and  continually 
our  doubts  were  coming  up,  and  we  had  to  answer  them 
over  and  over  again.  But  at  length  we  have  vanquished 
them  so  often  that  they  have  ceased  to  come ;  and  though 
we  know  how  to  meet  them  if  they  should,  yet  we  scarce- 
ly remember  that  we  ever  had  any  doubts.  This  is  what 
I  mean  by  filial  faith  ;  at  least,  this  is  part  of  it.  You 
will  understand  now,  perhaps,  why  I  so  continually  cau- 
tioned you  against  taking  anything  upon  trust,  or  sup- 
posing that  I  could  do  anything  more  for  you  than  put 
you  in  the  way  to  resolve  your  doubts ;  because,  if  you 
had  received  anything  on  my  authority,  then  your  fab- 
ric of  belief  would  some  time  give  way,  and,  when  you 
thought  you  had  built  a  firm  foundation  to  stand  upon, 
you  would  find  it  giving  way  under  your  feet,  and  be 
obliged  to  go  clear  back  and  lay  the  corner-stone  anew. 


MEMOIR.  71 

I  do  not  think  this  will  ever  befall  you,  but  you  must 
not  despair  if  it  should ;  only  the  second  building  is 
harder  than  the  first,  and  it  is  better  to  go  on  so  slow 
and  sure  that  there  will  be  no  danger  of  falling  back. 
Then,  again,  if  your  faith  in  goodness  rests  on  man,  it 
will  sometimes  waver ;  for  human  goodness  is  a  poor 
thing,  after  all,  —  very  poor. 

"  You  must  believe  in  truth  not  from  logic,  in  good- 
ness not  from  man ;  but  the  source  of  belief  must  be 
in  God.  You  know  the  Samaritans  said,  '  Now  we  be- 
lieve, not  because  of  the  saying  of  the  woman,  but  we 
have  seen  and  heard  him  ourselves.' 

"  I  saw  on  Sunday  a  beautiful  arch  of  stone,  built 
with  great  art,  over  the  entrance  to  the  cemetery  at 
Salem.  -It  fell  once,  because  it  had  not  been  well  con- 
structed ;  bat  now  it  stands  firm,  a  mere  loose  pile  of 
stones,  without  support,  or  iron  bolts,  or  cement,  held 
together  by  God's  law  of  gravitation.  The  woodbine 
and  the  ivy  have  grown  up  all  over  it,  and  will  soon 
hide  every  vestige  of  man's  art  from  the  eye.  So 
should  we  build  the  structure  of  a  living  faith  in  our 
heart ;  and  by  and  by  it  shall  have  stood  so  long  and 
be  so  natural  and  entire,  so  overgrown  with  all  the 
green,  springing  beauty  and  vhrtue  and  gladness  of  life, 
that  we  shall  forget  how  every  stone  was  laid  one  upon 
another  with  slow  and  patient  toil ;  and  if  we  ask  how 
came  it  so  with  us,  the  first  answer  that  should  come, 
spontaneous  and  unbidden,  would  be,  '  God  made  it  so.' 

"  This  is  what  I  mean  by  a  natural  faith  that  never 
questions,  —  a  childlike  faith  that  takes  God's  word 
and  asks  no  more." 


72  MEMOIR. 

Dorchester,  August  21. —  "You  speak  with  regret 
of  the  severing  of  our  thread  of  intercourse.  Have  you 
not  learned,  long  ago,  that  to  my  '  life,  doings,  and  say- 
ings '  there  is  no  thread  ?  They  are  but  as  so  many  fly- 
ing ends,  —  scattered,  ravelling,  confused,  and  worthless. 
I  have  neither  done,  attempted,  nor  projected  anything 
the  last  few  months.  Now,  these  last  two  nights,  while 
God  and  Death  and  I  sat  watching  my  poor  suffering 
sister,  I  have  felt  more  and  lived  more.  Sometimes, 
when  we  think  we  can  do  and  bear  no  longer,  God 
shows  us  how  we  can  both  bear  longer  and  more,  and 
makes  us  strong  again  by  adding  to  our  burden.  Self- 
ish and  petulant,  Moses  says, '  Send  by  whom  thou  wilt 
send,  O  Lord.'  How  often  do  we  thus  shrink  from  life's 
mission,  so  different  from  our  choice,  so  at  variance  with 
our  conviction  of  what  is  fitting !  We  don't  believe  we 
can  perform  it,  even  by  and  with  God's  help.  But  we 
can. 

"  I  have  more  and  more  faith  in  the  Sunday  School. 
Ours  is  going  on  beautifully,  —  no  thanks  to  me.  I 
think  we  must  have  adult  classes.  Next  winter,  I  mean 
to  have  an  adult  Sunday  School  specifically.  Ordina- 
rily, we  have  had  no  school  in  winter.  Last  year,  there 
were  a  few  voluntary  adult  classes,  numbering  about 
seventy-five,  and  they  went  on  admirably. 

"  I  am  to  be  better  as  soon  as  it  grows  cool,  and  then 
I  shall  work,  I  trust.  Every  day,  these  six  months,  I 
have  been  thinking  about  giving  up.  But  I  shall  do  no 
such  thing.  If  I  am  well,  I  have  neither  the  right  nor 
the  motive ;  if  sick,  I  lack  the  energy  for  such  a  step. 
And  though  it  would  seem  so  beautiful  to  get  time  to 


MEMOIR.  73 

recruit,  physically  and  intellectually,  yet  is  n't  this  idea 
of  putting  one's  self  in  a  favorable  position  for  self-cul- 
ture an  absurdity  and  a  humbug,  no  less  than  a  sinful, 
devil-invented  excuse  for  shirking  duty  ? 

"  How  impossible  it  is  for  you  to  know  the  utter  des- 
olation of  spirit  that  sometimes  comes  over  me  with 
that  word  Home  !  But  my  little  boy  begins  to  pull  at  my 
heart,  though  I  have  strangely  held  back,  resolved  to 
have  no  tie  to  life.  It  is  dreadful  to  feel  as  if  God  had 
plucked  you  up  like  a  weed,  and  thrown  you  away. 
These  are  not  such  words  as  I  would  fain  utter  to  your 
brotherly  ear,  —  so  kind  to  listen  that  it  makes  me  won- 
der. But,  God  helping,  you  shall  see  me  strong  again 
for  life's  labor,  and  not  shrinking  from  its  wisely-ap- 
pointed mission,  but  girded  as  a  pilgrim,  ready  to  say, 
'  Here  am  I,  Lord,  send  me.'  God  bless  you  and  yours  !" 

October  5.  — "  Through  the  summer,  I  was  fairly 
dried  up  with  the  heat.  The  streams  of  thought  were 
thin  and  small  as  knitting-needles,  and  the  wheels  of  my 
intellectual  factory  were  all  still  and  motionless  as  the 
sphinx,  —  I  mean,  of  course,  the  sphinx  statue.  I  could 
no  more  make  a  sermon  than  a  tree.  Now  Caesar  is 
himself  again  ;  and  though  the  streams  are  still  low,  the 
wheels  will  turn,  and  make  fabrics  '  after  their  kind.' 

"  I  believe  this  is  the  blessedest  parish  in  the  world 
for  an  inefficient  man.  It  is  so  large  and  strong,  it  goes 
alone.  The  Sunday  School  has  got  gloriously  through 
the  season.  Teachers'  meetings  well  attended  and  sus- 
tained, —  people  come  to  church  and  listen  splendidly  ; 
and  the  best  of  it  is,  that  I  can't  claim  the  least  credit 
for  it.  I  do  flatter  myself,  that  it  is  of  some  importance, 


74  MEMOIR. 

that,  nominally,  they  should  have  a  minister  ;  but  the 
work  does  itself. 

" I  was  riding  into  Boston  in  the  omnibus,  and 

fell  into  conversation  with  a  friend  of  mine  about  wealth. 
I  came  out  pretty  strong  on  mammon-worship,  and  the 
selfish  and  prodigal  luxury  of  wealth.  By  and  by  a 
man  got  out  who  had  sat  near  me,  and  I  inquired  his 

name.    '  That  is  Mr. ,'  said  my  friend  ;  'just  one  of 

those  men  you  were  berating,  and  doubtless  thought  you 
were  uttering  strange  doctrines.'  The  next  day,  I  met 

him  again.  '  I  rode  out,'  said  he,  'with  Mr. last  night, 

and  he  inquired,  the  first  thing,  who  you  were.  "  He  is 
a  little  cracked  in  his  intellect,  is  n't  he  ?  I  never  heard 
such  views  advanced  in  my  life.  It  is  idle  to  say  a  man 
has  no  right  to  spend  his  money  as  he  pleases.  To 
carry  out  such  notions  as  his,"  continued  he,  "  would  be 
to  level  all  to  one  grade,  and  reduce  society  to  chaos  or  a 
savage  state."  Why,'  says  my  friend,  '  I  think  you  mis- 
understood him,  if  you  think  so.  As  to  his  being  crack- 
ed in  intellect,  when  1  remember  that  Galileo  and  Co- 
lumbus, and  a  host  of  such  men,  were  so  charged  in  their 
day,  and  St.  Paul  was  thought  insane  by  some,  it  be- 
comes a  serious  question,  when  one  differs  from  me, 
whether  it  is  he  or  I  that  is  cracked.'  Soon  after,  I  met 
a  very  intelligent  and  excellent  lady,  who  lives  in  a 
small  country  town,  and,  in  the  course  of  some  conver- 
sation with  her,  she  said,  '  It  is  one  of  the  hardest  things 
in  the  world  for  me  to  define  the  limits  of  duty.  For 
instance,  our  neighbours  are  all  poor,  and  we  have  al- 
ways done  without  carpets  and  a  good  many  such  things, 
because  we  did  not  want  to  be  suspected  of  setting  our- 


MEMOIR.  75 

selves  up  above  them,  and  because  we  would  not  have 
our  example  encourage  them  in  expenses  they  are  not 
able  to  incur.  They  do  without  such  things  contented- 
ly, when  they  find  that  we  do.' 

"  But  to  return.  Nothing  so  impedes  the  spread  of 
Christianity  as  these  two  things :  that  constancy  of  La- 
bor, that  takes  all  a  man's  time  and  thoughts,  and  makes 
him  the  merest  machine,  merely  to  get  money  ;  and 
that  selfish  love  of  Ease,  that  reckless  and  prodigal  In- 
dulgence, after  a  man  has  got  wealth.  The  first  kills 
out  the  intellect,  and  the  last  petrifies  the  heart  of  a 
man.  It  is  the  minister's  office  to  rebuke  both  ;  and  if 
he  lends  countenance  to  the  last,  how  can  he  with  any 
consistency  utter  his  word  against  the  former  ?  I  might 
go  on  to  show  how  the  minister  stands  as  a  connecting 
link  between  these  two  divided  classes,  and  it  is  his  prov- 
ince to  labor  to  bring  them  up  side  by  side  on  the  broad 
level  of  Christian  brotherhood 

"  It  seems  to  me  he  should  say,  by  word  and  exam- 
ple, '  These  are  not  the  legitimate  uses  of  money.'  It 
seems  to  me,  that,  with  a  somewhat  stern  simplicity  of 
living,  he  should  discountenance  these  tendencies  of  the 
times.  At  least,  he  should  protect  himself  from  the 
charge  of  aristocracy,  and  the  love  of  wealth  and  ease. 
I  know  that  an  extreme  here  would  fail  of  its  designed 
influence,  and  I  confess  I  should  n't  know  where  to  draw 
the  line  for  myself,  still  less  for  another.  But  with  my 
radical  tendencies,  you  need  n't  be  surprised  to  hear 
that  I  have  taken  as  literal  duty  the  injunction  not  to  lay 
up  treasures  on  earth,  (thus  far  from  necessity  as  well 
as  principle,)  have  forsworn  carpets,  and  changed  a  very 


76  MEMOIR. 

nice  portrait-frame  my  conscience  reproaches  me  for 
buying  last  month,  to  one  of  plain  painted  pine  ;  and 
made  my  house  (to  quote  Emerson  again)  'a  temple  of 
the  Furies  of  Lacedsemon,  formidable  and  holy  to  all, 
which  none  but  a  Spartan  may  enter,  or  so  much  as 
behold.'  " 

December  2,  1847.  — "  As  to  the  general  course 
which  you  propose,  I  have  not  a  word  to  say  about  it, 
except  this,  that  a  topic  of  which  you  do  not  choose  to 
speak  is  not  an  '  interdicted '  one  ;  and  still  I  should 
say  for  myself,  that  I  would  preach  nowhere,  where  by 
tacit  understanding  any  subject  was  '  interdicted,'  by 
stipulation  or  outward  pressure,  expressed  or  implied. 
Your  judgment  of  what  is  wisest  and  best  is  quite  anoth- 
er thing  from  being  bound  by  others'  judgment  of  what 
is  right  or  agreeable  to  them. 

"  Certainly  I  have  not,  any  more  than  you,  great 
sympathy  with  N.  E.  Abolitionism.  Still,  it  has  its 
mission  to  perform,  —  to  wit,  the  awakening  of  the 
community  to  a  sense  of  the  evils  of  slavery.  For  it  is 
a  fact  lamentably  true,  that  there  are  many  here  at  the 
North,  who  are  not  alive  to  the  fact  that  it  is  either  an 
evil  or  a  sin,  —  who  care  nothing  about  it.  When  the 
moral  sense  of  the  North  is  as  decided  and  strong  on 
this  subject  as  it  is  in  England,  its  influence  must  be 
powerfully  felt.  The  Liberty  party,  too,  is  coming  to  be 
respected  as  a  political  power.  The  South  will  be  more 
and  more  alarmed,  —  more  and  more  indignant,  it  may 
be ;  but  she  will  discuss  and  agitate  the  subject,  and  the 
moment  discussion  begins,  then  the  end  is  plainly  to  be 
seen  :  every  conscientious  man  will  be  convinced  of  the 


MEMOIR.  77 

sin,  every  clear-sighted  man  will  see  the  inexpediency, 
of  slavery.  As  to  local  prejudice,  and  party  acrimony, 
arid  sectional  hatred,  that  is  the  veriest  humbug.  What 
is  the  North  ?  or  the  anti-slavery  party  ?  A  mere 
phantom  of  imagination,  an  abstract  conception,  that 
(except  in  the  persons  of  certain  leaders)  nobody  can 
make  concrete.  In  the  beginning  of  the  temperance 
movement,  it  was  a  '  sectarian  thing,'  —  a  bitter  and 
cruel  persecution  of  the  poor  drunkard.  What  has  be- 
come of  all  that  outcry  now  ?  The  drunkard  says  it  no 
longer.  So,  let  the  South  become  interested  in  Aboli- 
tionism, and  she  will  thank  the  most  rabid  for  helping  to 
open  her  eyes.  The  sinner  converted  under  Orthodoxy 
loved  the  man  who  painted  his  sin  so  darkly,  and  threat- 
ened him  with  awful  and  endless  damnation  if  he  did 
not  forsake  it.  Say  what  you  will  about  extravagance, 
fanaticism,  severity  of  judgment,  exaggerated  statement, 
and  tyranny  of  opinion,  the  world  has  always  been  re- 
formed in  this  way  and  by  these  means  ;  and,  for  aught 
I  know,  she  always  will  require  them. 

"  I  have  little  faith  in  the  measures,  and  still  less  sym- 
pathy with  the  spirit,  of  Abolitionism.  What,  then,  shall 
I  do,  seeing  that  so  much  moral  life  and  true  feeling  in 
the  community  runs  into  that  channel  ?  Shall  I  throw 
cold  water  on  it  ?  That  were  to  injure  my  own  influ- 
ence, —  to  deaden  the  moral  sense  now  regnant,  and  to 
be  identified  with  the  opponents  of  the  whole  reform.  I 
will  not  absolutely  identify  myself  with  the  party.  I 
will  even  say  that  reforms  are  not  the  whole  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  may  be  conducted  in  an  unchristian  spirit ; 
but  I  will  be  cautious  how  I  complain  even  of  the  men 


78  MEMOIR. 

engaged  in  this  reform.  Do  not  say  I  wrong  the  spirit 
of  Christianity  by  silent  consent  to  such  tremendous  se- 
verity of  judgment.  I  do  not  doubt  that  many  a  slave- 
holder is  a  better  and  truer  man  than  myself;  but  that 
ought  not  to  lead  me  to  lower  my  standard  of  Christian 
obligation.  For  his  own  sake,  though  he  were  ten 
times  a  Paul,  I  will  say,  In  the  light  of  Christianity 
slave-holding  is  a  monstrous  crime  against  God  and 
man.  If  there  are  excuses,  qualifications,  exceptions, 
I  do  not  feel  bound  to  make  them.  Still,  so  far  as  I 
am  concerned,  I  would  speak  of  the  sin  itself,  not  of 
the  sinner. 

" These  are  only  transient  phases  of  a  great 

movement,  which  will  soon  pass  away.  Already  old- 
organization  assumes  a  higher  moral  tone,  and  is  much 
less  rabid  than  it  was.  But  the  movement  will  go  on. 
I  cannot  stop  it.  God  forbid  I  should  hinder  or  oppose 
it.  I  will  rather  share  in  it,  and  go  with  it  as  far  as  I 
possibly  can,  —  for  my  own  sake,  lest  it  should  crush 
me,  —  for  its  sake,  that  my  more  moderate  word  may 
be  as  a  rain-drop,  now  and  then,  to  extinguish  the  burn- 
ing grass-blade  its  lightnings  have  set  on  fire.  It  is  n't 
for  you  or  me  to  do  the  dirty  work,  or  fight  the  bloody 
battle  ;  but  it  must  be  done  and  fought.  A  million  of 
Melancthons  would  not  have  brought  about  the  Reforma- 
{ion.  That  first  company  of  the  Apostles  had  been  in- 
complete without  the  Boanerges ;  and  John  must  preach 
repentance  before  Jesus  can  proclaim  the  kingdom  of 
heaven. 

"  I  am  not  startled  at  the  idea  of  immediate,  uncon- 
ditional emancipation.     It  would  probably  take  place 


MEMOIR.  79 

in  one  State  at  a  time  ;  why  would  it  be  less  practi- 
cable than  in  the  British  West  Indies  ?  At  any  rate, 
the  way  will  certainly  appear  when  there  is  a  dispo- 
sition to  find  it." 


This  long  transcript  of  his  reflections  and  mental 
habits  has  thus  been  concluded,  with  the  account 
of  himself  with  which  he  prefaces  his  autumn  work, 
and  another,  of  a  year's  later  date,  which  seems  to 
belong  to  the  same  connection.  These  very  nearly 
complete  the  record  he  has  left  of  what  was  pe- 
culiar or  strongly  personal  in  his  plans  of  labor,  in 
his  professional  views,  or  in  his  experience.  The 
most  full  account  of  the  period  that  succeeded  will 
be  gathered  from  those  passages  01  his  discourses 
(mostly  belonging  to  that  year)  which  are  given  in 
another  part  of  this  volume.  A  long  space  will 
therefore  intervene  in  these  memoirs,  during  which 
he  was  slowly  maturing  the  fruits  of  his  brief  but 
crowded  experience.  With  the  exception  of  ill- 
health  and  mental  depression  at  intervals,  he  was 
henceforth  becoming  able  to  receive  a  more  cheer- 
ful view  of  life,  and  the  hope  of  a  fresh  field  of 
healthy  activity  and  usefulness. 

Meanwhile,  busied  with  professional  care,  and 
shrinking,  as  it  were,  from  the  free  communication 


80  MEMOIR. 

which  he  had  so  warmly  welcomed  and  responded 
to  in  the  first  season  of  his  trial,  he  felt  more  strongly 
the  loneliness  of  spirit  to  which  this  had  condemned 
him.  The  weight  of  care  pressed  more  heavily, 
and  was  sustained  with  a  less  elastic  mind.  Some- 
thing almost  stern  and  ascetic  in  his  idea  of  the 
ethics  of  his  profession  has  been  already  indicated, 
very  different  from  the  cheerful,  buoyant  sentiment, 
in  which  the  aesthetic  was  largely  mingled  with  the 
practical,  that  marked  the  first  period  of  his  course. 
In  part,  this  change  of  feeling  was  deepened,  in  part 
worn  away,  by  time.  He  says  of  himself,  at  a  later 
date,  "  I  have  grown  very  old  these  three  years. 
Trying  experience  and  isolation  from  sympathy  have 
made  me  brooding  and  anxious,  habitually  sad,  and 
habitually  unconfiding  and  reserved.  Crowding  la- 
bor and  over-work  have  left  me  no  time  to  replen- 
ish, —  cramped  and  bound  and  smoke-dried  me.  I 
have  lost  the  genial  vivacity  and  the  fresh  flow  of 
spontaneous  and  living  thought, —  whatever  of  it  I 
once  had.  I  expect  and  hope  for  little.  I  am  a 
severe  judge,  yet,  after  all,  am  free  to  confess  that  I 
judge  none  so  severely  as  myself.  Yet  still  I  do 
suspect  there  is  a  heart  left ;  sometimes,  agnosce 
veteris  vestigia  jlammce.  Sometimes  over  the  hori- 


MEMOIR.  81 

zon  of  my  winter  night  flashes  up  an  auroral  redness, 
that  I  fancy  is  the  glowing  morning  of  spring  thought; 
but  that  soon  seems  to  pass  away,  the  fitful  glare  of 
meteoric  or  electric  flame,  cold  and  transient." 
The  return  of  hope,  and  the  restored  faculty  of  en- 
joyment, appear  in  the  description  of  his  first  visit 
to  the  valley  of  the  Connecticut,  in  the  summer  of 
1847,  with  the  chastened  sadness  of  the  retrospect 
that  follows  it  :  — 

"  The  way  was  charming,  and,  for  about  ten  miles, 
along  the  banks  of  Miller's  river,  perfectly  enchanting. 
The  road  winds  between  the  river  and  a  high  hill,  run- 
ning a  long  distance  through  thick  woods,  where  the 
delicate  white  flowers  of  the  white-wood  (not  unlike  a 
sweetbrier  rose  in  shape  and  size,  and  growing  six  to 
ten  feet  high)  mingle  with  the  rich  pink  of  the  wild 
honey-suckle,  with  which  the  air  is  fragrant.  But  O, 
the  valley  of  the  Connecticut !  —  you  never  saw,  and 
cannot  conceive,  anything  like  it.  The  great,  still,  sober 
river,  moving  on  its  calm,  beneficent  course,  like  some 
noble  and  divine  soul  through  life,  —  the  high  hills  that 
swell  up,  range  after  range,  in  the  distance,  —  the  acres 
upon  acres  that  make  that  fertile  valley,  laid  out  in 
square  plots,  and  separated  by  cart-paths,  but  nowhere 
fenced,  —  the  fringe  of  shrubbery  that  adorns  its  banks 
without  concealing  its  beauty,  (like  a  fair  face  seen 
through  a  green  veil,)  —  all  this  passes  description.  What 
with  this,  and  the  fact  that  I  saw  it  for  the  first  time,  in 
6 


82  MEMOIR. 

the  very  freshness  of  spring, —  what  with  the  beauty 
and  hospitable  welcome  of  a  kind  and  free  country 
farmer's  home,  —  what  with  the  new  spring  buds  of  hope 
and  promise  starting  in  the  wintry  heart,  —  these  four 
days  were  such  a  paradise  as  it  never  seemed  that  Dearth 
could  bring  again  to  me,  and  have  left  a  picture  in  my 
mind,  and  a  host  of  memories  in  my  soul,  fresh  and 
bright  and  fragrant  as  Eden  itself." 

December  28,  1847.  —  "  It  is  startling  and  strange, 
as  one  sits  down  to  think  of  friends,  and  count  over 
their  names  one  by  one,  to  mark  how,  year  by  year,  it 
seems  as  if  the  number  grew  smaller  and  smaller,  of 
those  toward  whom  you  feel  a  near,  and  warm,  and 
trusting  affection.  Some  are  parted  from  us  by  that 
veil,  through  which,  thin  as  it  is,  our  mortal  eyes  may 
not,  and  our  spiritual  vision  is  not  yet  pure  enough  to 
look ;  some  have  gone  away  from  us,  and  are  lost  in  the 
inextinguishable  mass  of  the  world's  swelling  tide,  that 
ebbs  and  flows  around  us,  so  indifferent,  and  so  chill, 
that  very  often  we  forget  that  it  is  made  up  of  hearts 
like  our  own  ;  some  we  ourselves  have  outgrown ;  and 
toward  some  we  have  suffered  our  affection  to  grow  coid 
and  die  out,  and  now,  if  we  would  gladly  rekindle  it,  we 
know  not  how.  And  then,  too,  it  is  common  experience, 
though  it  ought  not  to  be,  that,  as  one  grows  older,  he  is 
less  ready  to  form  new  attachments ;  and  what  with 
scanty  opportunities  of  intercourse  with  a  particular  in- 
dividual, and  what  with  his  diminished  facility  of  affec- 
tion, and  perhaps  an  increased  distrust  and  reserve,  he 
really  does  form  fewer  and  fewer  real  friendships  year 
by  year.  I  have  felt  this  in  my  own  experience,  not  so 


MEMOIR.  83 

much,  perhaps,  from  advance  in  life's  journey,  as  that 
the  events  these  few  years  have  brought  have  made  me 
more  reserved,  and  shut  me  out  from  others.  I  have 
been  thinking  much  of  this  lately,  and  have  felt  more  and 
more  inclined  to  fall  back  upon  old  friends,  and  to  renew 
intercourse  with  some  from  whom  duties  at  home,  and 
accidental  circumstances,  have  kept  me  more  separated 
than  I  should  have  chosen,  or  it  was  well  for  me  to  be. 
And  so  I  have  been  more  drawn  towards  Dorchester  of 
late  than  for  a  long  time  :  the  old  home  memories  have 
been  reviving  within  me,  and  the  faces  of  old  friends 
have  had  a  more  prominent  place  in  my  thoughts. 

"  I  have  been  conscious  of  this  feeling  a  great  many 
times  during  the  last  few  months.  And  that  made  me 
feel  very  deeply,  the  other  day,  the  assurance  of  contin- 
ued interest,  and  kind  remembrance,  implied  in  your 
present.  I  was  touched  with  the  thoughtful  kindness 
that  remembered  me  across  the  waters.  And  then  such 
a  feeling  of  your  long  and  valued  friendship  came  up  in 
my  heart,  that  it  seemed  to  shoot  a  bridge  over  the  gulf 
of  a  three  years'  absence,  and  a  throng  of  past  memo- 
ries rushed  into  my  thoughts  that  I  could  hardly  repress, 
and  ought  not  to  have  tried.  If  I  had  been  true  to  my 
own  feeling,  I  should  have  put  away  the  picture,  and  sat 
down,  and  looked  at  the  picture  of  the  Past. 

"  These  three  years  have  been  longer  than  all  my 
life  before.  Their  recollections  have  crowded  the 
thought  of  that  previous  life  out  of  my  mind.  But  more 
and  more  the  earlier  days  come  back.  If  your  experi- 
ence is  like  mine,  you  have  found  life  made  up  more  of 
the  memory  of  the  past,  and  the  hope  of  the  future,  than 


84  MEMOIR. 

the  enjoyment  of  the  present  moment.  Yet  I  can  hard- 
ly think  it  was  meant  to  be  so.  It  seems  to  me  we 
ought  to  strive  to  live  as  much  as  is  possible  in  the  pres- 
ent,—  for  the  duty  and  the  action  that  always  put  in  a 
claim  for  now.  Still  I  thank  God,  whose  mercy  has 
given  to  man  this  threefold  life  of  memory,  of  action, 
and  of  anticipation.  For  often,  in  the  weakness  and  in- 
ability of  the  present,  we  turn  our  feet  backward,  and 
with  thankful  tears  retrace  the  life  of  the  past.  We 
pause  to  repose  in  our  weariness  on  the  green  and  sun- 
ny slopes  of  childhood  ;  we  comfort  our  fainting  spirits 
with  memories,  which  are  not  the  less  dear  and  precious 
because  they  are  sad.  And  so  there  are  times  when 
we  lean,  when  we  must  lean,  on  the  future,  —  when,  in 
conscious  weakness  or  despondency  of  spirit,  our  com- 
fort is,  that  there  is  a  to-morrow  after  to-day  ;  and  we 
turn  away  from  the  present,  and  raise  our  eyes  to  the 
God  and  the  heaven  above  us. 

"  It  could  not  but  be,  that,  isolated  from  real  sympa- 
thy and  companionship,  I  have  lived,  in  these  last  two 
years,  very  much  in  the  past, —  more  than  was  right  or 
well,  perhaps,  and  yet  I  am  not  sure.  Now,  I  am  look- 
ing forward  to  the  future,  —  not  with  great  confidence 
or  high  expectation,  but  with  more  of  hope  than  I 
thought  I  should  ever  have  in  life  again. 

"  But  I  trust,  if  I  am  permitted  to  have  a  home  again, 
I  shall  use  its  privileges  more  faithfully,  and  less  selfish- 
ly, —  shall  build  up  in  it  a  divine  life,  and  sanctify 
it  as  a  school  of  teaching  for  the  great  Home  to  which 
we  look.  And  so,  to  speak  truly,  I  do  anticipate  more 
than  I  have  ever  anticipated,  only  in  a  different  way." 


MEMOIR.  85 

Another  indication  of  the  more  firm  and  hopeful 
spirit  with  which  he  looked  forward  to  the  next 
year's  duties,  is  found  in  the  discourse  he  preached 
on  the  third  and  last  anniversary  of  his  settlement. 
As  a  summing  up  of  the  past,  and  anticipation  of 
the  future,  this  seems  the  fittest  place  to  insert  a  few 
passages  from  it. 

"  When  I  was  settled  as  your  preacher,  I  determined 
to  begin  at  once  by  uttering  without  reserve  whatever 
seemed  to  me  the  truth.  I  determined  also  to  confine 
myself  to  no  narrow  range  of  topics,  but  to  speak  on 
whatever  subject  seemed  to  me  important  or  useful.  To 
my  mind,  that  alone  is  Christian  preaching,  —  above  all, 
useful  preaching,  —  which  applies  Christianity  to  the 
thoughts,  opinions,  and  practices  of  the  present  day.  I 
have  had  no  temptation  to  keep  anything  back.  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  the  temptation  has  been  the  rather 
to  abuse  the  freedom  so  willingly  granted.  If  I  have 
seemed  to  any  of  you  to  be  severe  in  judgment,  or  dog- 
matic in  opinion,  or  one-sided  and  narrow  in  my  range 
of  subjects,  you  have  failed  in  your  duty  to  me,  as  well 
as  in  the  maintenance  of  your  own  rights,  not  to  re- 
prove me  for  it. 

"  Next,  the  other  great  means  of  ministerial  influ- 
ence, parochial  visiting,  —  a  subject  which  has  cost 
me  more  labor,  more  anxiety,  and  more  regret,  than 
anything  connected  with  my  public  duties.  I  am  per- 
fectly willing  to  say,  that  I  have  not,  in  this  part  of  my 
duty,  fulfilled  my  own  intention  or  expectations ;  and  I 


86  MEMOIR. 

feel  that  many  of  you  are  warranted  in  complaining  that 
your  minister  is  a  stranger.  If  I  have  seemed  negligent 
of  anybody,  it  was  accidental,  and  not  of  design.  I  will 
not  plead  for  indulgence,  because  I  have  received  it ; 
but  I  will  express  my  hope  of  doing  more  in  this  respect 
in  the  future. 

"  And  now,  in  reviewing  these  three  years,  I  confess, 
I  cannot  count  up  any  very  tangible  results  of  my  min- 
istry. I  have  preached  much  on  the  institutions  of 
Christianity,  but  our  Church  has  received  few  acces- 
sions ;  and  the  ordinances  of  baptism  and  communion 
areas  much  neglected,  —  perhaps  increasingly  so.  I 
have  endeavoured  to  urge  you  to  begin,  and  to  live,  a 
spiritual  life  ;  but  very  few  have  spoken  to  me  of  spirit- 
ual purposes  and  aims,  hopes,  fears,  doubts,  or  strug- 
gles. Sometimes,  in  hours  of  desponding,  I  would  have 
given  much  to  have  had,  from  a  single  soul,  the  expres- 
sion of  a  confiding  sympathy,  or  the  assurance  that  some 
word  of  mine  had  been  to  it  the  germ  of  a  diviner  life, 
or  the  means  of  quickening  influence.  It  is  not  possi- 
ble that  I  should  look  back  on  my  three  years'  minis- 
try, without  finding  many  things  to  regret,  many  duties 
neglected,  errors  of  inexperience,  mistakes  of  judgment, 
follies  and  sins  that  bring  a  double  penalty,  weakening 
my  influence  while  they  retard  my  own  onward  prog- 
ress. I  know,  too,  that,  very  often,  the  opportunity  of 
salutary  counsel  has  been  lost ;  very  often  the  word  of 
sympathy,  that  I  would  gladly  have  spoken,  has  been 
withheld,  because  I  knew  not  how  to  say  it ;  very  often 
I  have  failed  through  neglect  or  indolence  to  minister 
comfort  to  the  sick,  or  to  cheer  the  aged  with  friendly 


MEMOIR.  87 

words.  Think  you,  the  minister's  conscience  does  not 
count  up  all  these  things,  —  a  longer  and  darker  array 
than  all  the  gossip  or  the  scandal  of  a  parish  could  bring, 
the  true  and  the  false  together  ? 

"But,  if  I  have  not  done  all  you  might  have  expect- 
ed, yet  you  have  excused  many  things,  have  borne 
many  deficiencies  patiently.  If  you  have  not  expressed 
much  in  words  of  sympathy  and  kind  feeling,  you  have 
given  satisfactory  evidence  that  you  felt  it.  If  I  have 
come  to  be  personally  intimate  with  few,  I  stand  on 
pleasant  terms  with  all,  and  have  received  nothing  but 
kindness  and  courtesy  from  every  one  with  whom  I 
have  had  intercourse.  If  I  have  brought  but  few  to 
adopt  my  opinions,  I  have  learned  how  kindly  and  toler- 
antly they  are  listened  to  by  those  who  dissent  from 
them.  I  feel  that  I  am  gaining  a  position  among  you, 
and  coming  to  stand  nearer  to  you.  You  have  sum- 
mered me  and  wintered  me ;  and  such  as  I  am,  you 
know  me,  for  better  or  worse. 

"  And  I  will  say,  that  I  am  looking  forward  on  my 
future  prospects  of  usefulness  with  more  hope  than  at 
any  preceding  period  since  I  came  among  you.  The 
first  popularity  of  a  young  preacher  is  a  dangerous  and 
deceitful  thing,  variable  and  treacherous  as  the  wind  : 
no  man  knows  whence  it  cometh  or  whither  it  goeth. 
I  have  outlived  that  dangerous  period,  and  still  have  rea- 
son to  believe,  that,  in  as  great  a  degree  as  is  ordinarily 
to  be  expected,  my  services  are  satisfactory  to  you.  I 
place  a  reliance  upon  the  fact  now,  which  ought  never 
to  be  placed  on  any  sudden  breeze  of  popular  applause. 
There  are  other  things  to  make  the  first  three  years  of 


00  MEMOIR. 

a  minister's  life  peculiarly  trying,  —  his  own  inexperi- 
ence ;  the  tremendous  pressure  of  labor,  new  and  ardu- 
ous;  the  crushing  demand  upon  his  intellectual  re- 
sources. I  believe  that  I  have  passed  the  most  labo- 
rious and  trying  period  of  life.  Henceforward,  I  can 
better  meet  the  demand  which  custom  has  inured  one 
to,  and  shall  be  able  to  perform  the  same  amount  of  la- 
bor with  more  ease. 

"  And  hardly,  in  the  common  course  of  Providence, 
may  the  next  three  years  be  expected  to  bring  experi- 
ences so  trying,  or  circumstances  so  unfavorable.  With 
firmer  health,  I  trust  to  do  more ;  with  less  to  make  me 
anxious  and  desponding,  I  can  labor  more  successfully. 
You  are  less  likely  to  misunderstand  my  preaching,  or 
my  character.  I  am  looking  forward,  then,  to-day,  with 
much  hope  ;  with  expectations  of  greater  success  and 
usefulness  in  the  future  ;  with  larger  plans  of  action, 
and  resolutions  of  greater  diligence  and  fidelity.  I  have, 
during  the  past  year,  been  much  more  away  than  my 
own  choice,  or  my  convictions  of  a  minister's  duty, 
would  warrant.  Partly,  I  have  found  this  necessary  for 
my  health,  and  partly  it  was  to  be  attributed  to  the  fact 
that  all  my  relations  of  earlier  affection  and  of  kindred 
lay  elsewhere.  In  the  future,  I  hope  and  mean  to  dwell 
more  among  my  own  people.  I  trust  to  do  much  more 
in  the  coming  year,  in  the  way  of  parochial  visiting,  — 
more  in  the  course  of  education,  and  in  behalf  of  our 
schools ;  and  do  confidently  expect  to  labor  more  effi- 
ciently, to  accomplish  more  and  better  things,  than  in  the 
past.  You  have  borne  with  the  first  years  of  greenness 
and  inexperience  :  you  have  a  right  to  reap,  and  to  ex- 


MEMOIR.  89 

£* 

peci  the  riper  fruits.  With  thankfulness  for  the  past, 
and  with  hope  for  the  future,  I  would  dedicate  to  you, 
this  day,  all  that  God  gives  me,  hereafter,  ability  to  do." 

Some  extracts  from  a  private  letter  complete  the 
record  of  the  hopes  and  feelings  of  this  season.  In 
particular,  and  owing  to  the  circumstances  under 
which  he  had  given  religious  guidance  and  counsel 
to  inquiring  minds  of  less  experience  than  his,  and 
of  an  active,  questioning  sort,  the  alternative  of  radi- 
cal and  conservative  tendencies  seems  to  have  come 
before  him  in  a  new  form,  and  accounts  for  the 
somewhat  exaggerated  statement  of  the  succeeding 
passage. 

January  29,  1848.  —  "  I  cannot  but  feel  the  justice  of 
all  you  say ;  but  consider,  that  the  public  standard  of 
rectitude  is  one  fixed  by  arbitrary  decision,  and  pre- 
served by  the  tyranny  of  moral  indignation.  Is  there 
any  help  for  this  ?  Must  not  one  say,  This  is  right  in 
God's  name,  and  get  the  majority  to  shout  it,  and  to  put 
down  by  force  of  shouting  the  dissenting  voices  ?  It  is 
perfectly  true,  that  this  is  n't  resting  the  public  moral- 
ity on  the  internal  convictions,  and  the  satisfied  reason 
of  individuals  ;  but  is  n't  the  world  to  be  ruled  this  good 
while  to  come  from  without  ?  It  may  not  be  a  sin  per 
se  to  drink  a  glass  of  wine,  but  it  were  heresy  to  say  so, 
and  a  wrong  to  society  too ;  so  I  am  thankful  that  to 
me  it  is  a  sin  per  se.  Where  would  the  temperance 
movement  have  been,  without  the  dictation  of  authority, 


yO  MEMOIR. 

0 

the  tyranny  of  public  odium,  and  the  penalties  of  legis- 
lative enactment,  that  have  helped  it  on  ?  You  will 
think  me  a  downright  heathen,  —  say  so,  an  you  will, — 
but  I  have  lost  my  faith  in  the  public  intelligence  and 
the  public  virtue.  I  believe  more  and  more  in  machin- 
eries, —  institutions,  —  despotisms.  I  am  growing  con- 
servative, and  almost  misanthropic,  —  turning  round  the 
first  corner  of  old  age,  when  prejudices  stiffen,  and 
opinions  fix  themselves,  and  the  sidelong  course  turns 
the  eyes  backward  more  and  more.  I  am  sick  of  liber- 
ty and  individualism,  —  should  like  in  my  modesty  to 
dictate  laws  to  the  world,  and  enforce  them,  —  am  dis- 
posed to  think  that  the  world  is  a  strange  place,  the 
worst  place  I  was  ever  in. 

Sunday  Night.  —  "  I  find  among  the  difficulties  of 
preaching  these  two  :  First,  a  reluctance  to  dogmatize, 
and,  second,  a  wish  to  preserve  the  authority  and  influ- 
ence of  truth.  Sometimes,  in  a  positive  statement,  one 
is  conscious  that  his  own  faith  is  not  so  unquestioning  as 
his  assertion,  or  else  he  feels  that  the  assertion  is  not 
true  without  qualification  and  exceptions.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  he  suggests  the  doubt,  or  inserts  the  limitation, 
many  minds  will  take  it  as  an  entire  negation.  What  is 
the  solution  of  the  difficulty  ? 

"  It  seems  sad  that  all  around  us  is  so  changing.  I 
am  too  much  impressed  with  it.  I  have  too  little  confi- 
dence in  the  future.  Sometimes  I  can  hardly  throw  off 
the  feeling  that  my  own  life  is  going  to  be  very  brief. 
It  is  sad  only  in  this  point  of  view,  to  think  of  its  being 
so,  that  the  work  of  life  is  not  done,  nor  its  aims  realiz- 
ed. I  would  fain  do  more,  and  live  better.  And  so, 


MEMOIR.  91 

ordinarily,  I  really  trust,  anticipate But  I  was 

going  to  say  how  strong  with  me,  of  late,  had  been  the 
impulse  to  cling  to  the  friends  that  are  left  me,  and  how 
I  have  determined,  these  months  past,  to  keep  up  my 
relations  of  sympathy  and  intercourse  with  all  to  whom 
I  stand  near  now.  For  I  woke  up,  one  day,  to  the  fact 
that  I  was  almost  alone  in  the  world,  —  for  real  com- 
munion and  hearty  affection,  isolated  and  desolate,  al- 
most. And  so  your  words  could  not  have  come  to  me 
more  seasonably  and  welcome.  I  take  them  thankfully, 
in  all  their  exaggeration  of  my  merits,  and  to  all  their 
tenderness  of  trust  and  fraternity  my  heart  answers 
back,  '  God  love  and  bless  you  ! ' " 

His  marriage  (to  Miss  Phila  A.  Field)  took  place 
February  21,  1848.  "  Shall  I  build  again,"  he  says, 
"  the  sacred  walls  of  home,  whose  sudden  fall  had 
left  me  surrounded  with  a  heap  of  ruin  ?  Will  the 
old  Eden  of  love  and  thought  and  hope  come  back 
again  ?  I  feel  as  if  it  might.  I  need  not  say  I  am 
happy, — happier  than  I  ever  trusted  or  dared  hope 
to  be  again."  This  new  light  of  joy  is  "his  rose 
of  dawn,  his  star  of  night,  the  spring  sun  smiling 
over  the  wintry  snow,  and  lighting  it  up  with  beau- 
ty." And,  blended  as  it  was  with  all  his  thought 
and  wish  and  expectation  of  longer  and  better  cause 
of  duty,  it  shed  a  promise  on  this  opening  season, 
as  if  he  had  a  right  to  look  forward  now  to  the 


92  MEMOIR. 

complete  fulfilment  of  a  hope  so  long  deferred,  — 
"  usefulness  and  a  happy  home." 

But  the  tone  of  his  system  seems  to  have  been 
permanently  depressed  ;  and  the  effort  he  made  to 
meet  the  pledge  given  in  his  discourse  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  year  was  a  vain  struggle  against  physical 
causes  too  powerful  for  him  to  control.  At  the 
same  time,  too,  he  was  not  free  from  mental  embar- 
rassment and  dissatisfaction.  The  great  question, 
as  to  the  nature  and  grounds  of  authority  in  religious 
belief,  opened  more  and  more  deeply  before  his 
mind  ;  and  the  last  letter  of  his,  expressing  strong 
interest  in  any  point  of  intellectual  belief,  contains 
the  earnest  statement  of  this,  with  the  hope  that 
others  would  give  the  satisfactory  answer  which  he 
found  it  so  difficult  to  give  for  himself.  This  point 
of  intellectual  or  speculative  dissatisfaction  may  help 
account,  perhaps,  for  the  morbid  and  exaggerated 
tone  which  may  have  been  remarked  in  much  of 
what  he  said  during  these  last  few  months.  True 
to  the  sentiment  of  duty  "  as  the  sea's  tidal  swell 
to  the  sovereign  moon,"  this  conflict  of  feelings 
and  sympathies  and  duties,  together  with  increasing 
bodily  ill-health,  would  do  much  to  derange  the  har- 
mony of  his  mind,  even  while  his  heart  went  so 


MEMOIK.  93 

fondly  back  to  its  old  affections,  and  was  loyal  as 
ever  to  its  early  aspiration. 

May  10,  1848.  —  "In  the  mystic  whirl  of  life,  I 
am  once  again  brought  side  by  side  with  you.  Trifles 
light  as  air  rule  us,  and  my  little  boy,  in  his  simple 
wonder,  is  a  daily  reminder  of  you.  I  remember  a 
peculiar  tone  and  manner  in  which,  long  ago,  you  used 
to  ejaculate,  '  Why  ! '  Insensibly  I  caught  it,  and  now 
Willie,  whose  organ  of  imitation  is  large,  comes  out 
every  now  and  then  with  a  '  Why ! '  exactly  in  your 
way.  And  whenever  he  does,  it  carries  me  back  to 
Divinity  Hall,  whose  recollections  grow  dearer  as  its 
scenes  recede  into  the  background  of  memory ;  and 
away  to  you,  not  at  W ,  but  wherever  in  the  spirit- 
ual world  you  happen  to  be.  Probably,  we  are  very 
seldom  where  we  are ;  and  I,  of  late,  though  seeming 
to  be  here  in  Leominster,  have  been  a  very  Wandering 
Jew,  —  a  Noah's  dove,  let  loose  in  uneasy,  and,  as  yet, 
unavailing  search  of  the  olive-branch. 

"  I  want  time  to  settle  a  multitude  of  questions,  that 
lie  so  deep  as  to  render  most  things  that  I  say  in  my 
preaching  half  a  matter  of  doubt.  I  am  in  a  transition 
stage,  and,  for  the  present,  held  in  solution.  Mean- 
while, my  preaching  grows  strongly  conservative,  partly 
because  I  have  learned  to  dread  for  myself  the  cutting 
loose  from  old  moorings,  and  partly  from  the  feeling 
lhat  negations  are  very  poor  food.  Sincere  idolatry  is 
better  than  bare,  cold  iconoclasm.  But,  pray,  are  you 
never  oppressed  with  the  shame  and  uneasiness  that 
come  of  doing  what  is  not  true  to  your  own  feeling 


94  MEMOIR. 

and  conviction  ?  It  is  a  fearful  problem  to  me,  how  I 
am  to  do  my  work  for  others,  and  keep  clear  of  sham 
and  cant. 

"  Intellectually,  my  position  is  equally  unsatisfactory. 
I  have  gone  on  these  three  years  in  ruinous  mental  hab- 
its,—  my  time  frittered,  my  mind  enervated,  through 
the  occupation  of  little  things.  My  preaching  has  not 
lost  power,  that  I  know  of,  over  others ;  yet  it  seems  to 
me  it  must,  for  I  am  sensible  of  its  growing  puerile  and 
stale.  The  result  of  my  life  is  bad  habits  of  study, 
loss  of  memory,  of  force  of  thought,  and  conversational 
power.  I  know  I  am  capable  of  better  things, — .that 
I  have  in  me  a  higher  ministry.  I  am  galled,  fretted, 
unhappy.  Still,  I  don't  know  how  to  do  anything  for 
myself.  '  The  field  that  has  fed  its  owner's  guests  dur- 
ing the  summer  will  yield  but  scanty  returns  in  harvest 
time.'  This  retribution  of  wasted  resources  is  already 
begun,  and  growing  worse,  and  harder  to  bear,  every 
day.  Then,  both  mentally  and  physically,  I  am  suffer- 
ing the  results  of  high-pressure  work.  The  inspiration 
which  nature  did  not  give,  I  have  sought  to  supply  from 
artificial  sources.  Fed  from  false  fires,  its  fitful  flash 
is  going  out  in  smoke,  as  devil's  gold,  kept  over  night, 
turns  to  sulphur  in  the  morning.  I  suffer,  as  Prome- 
theus did,  pangs  of  the  liver  for  stealing  the  fire  of  the 
gods,  but  have  not  his  compensation,  —  the  thought  that 
I  have  made  a  man.  I  need  not  say,  —  you  will  have 
premised  it  long  ago,  —  that  I  am  nervous,  dyspeptic, 
blue.  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  write  no  more  ser- 
mons after  next  Sunday,  till  I  am  better,  and,  if  I  can't 
meet  and  master  the  demons,  to  ask  a  dismission  the 
first  of  July." 


MEMOIR.  95 

I  have  preferred  to  present  the  whole  of  this  pain- 
ful and  sensitive  self-accusation,  so  as  to  do  entire 
justice  to  the  state  of  mind  in  which  he  felt  himself, 
at  last,  forced  to  renounce  the  position  he  had  held 
so  long,  and  through  so  heavy  trial.  In  his  moral 
judgments  he  had  always  included  the  neglect  and 
violation  of  physical  laws  ;  and  his  continued  and 
increasing  ill-health  he  attributed  far  more  to  his 
own  fault  than  any  candid  judge  will  allow.  His 
habits  were,  in  general,  simple,  and  not  in  defiance 
of  the  laws  of  the  system,  except  in  case  of  ex- 
posure and  over-work.  The  use  of  tea  was  the 
only  custom  in  this  regard  with  which  he  reproached 
himself,  and  that  not  of  the  more  deleterious  kinds. 
This  custom  he  had  deliberately  resumed,  after  a 
painful  effort  to  discontinue  it,  with  the  conviction 
(right  or  not)  that  it  was  his  duty  not  to  refuse  the 
support  which  he  seemed  absolutely  to  need.  To 
show  the  sort  of  compulsion  that  sometimes  drove 
him  to  over-action  and  excitement  of  the  brain,  may 
be  mentioned  an  instance,  when,  after  a  week's  very 
irritating  and  harassing  care,  his  second  sermon  being 
nearly  finished  at  eight  on  Saturday  evening,  a  man 
came  to  announce  that  a  funeral  service  would  be 
held  in  the  church  next  day ;  and  the  whole  labor 


96  MEMOIR. 

of  the  writing  must  be  done  over  again.  A  cool 
and  dispassionate  judgment  will,  no  doubt,  censure 
the  kindling  of  any  "  artificial  fire  "  ;  but  where 
there  is  consciousness  of  work  to  be  done,  and  the 
painful  sense  of  a  system  inadequate  to  meet  it,  the 
stronger  conscience  will  crowd  the  weaker  out  of 
sight.  This  is  not  meant  as  an  apology  for  any 
habit  that  permanently  depresses  the  bodily  and 
nervous  system,  but  as  a  vindication  of  one  whose 
first  thought  of  duty  (exacted  by  the  strict  standard 
of  his  own  and  the  public  judgment)  is  so  para- 
mount and  imperative,  that  he  "  gives  his  body  to 
be  buried,"  slowly,  by  the  artificial  fire  his  need  has 
kindled,  while  yet  his  other  conscience  is  shrinking 
and  protesting  before  it  all  the  while. 

The  .short  remainder  of  the  story  is  told  in  the 
annexed  series  of  extracts  :  — 

June  13. —  "  My  present  impression  is,  that  I  shall  ask 
a  dismission.  My  plan  is,  to  go  to  Dorchester,  and 
spend  a  few  months  in  study  and  work,  with  such  tran- 
sient preaching  as  I  can  find ;  then,  after  this  lay-by  of 
from  six  months  to  a  year,  to  find  a  quiet  and  not  too 
laborious  place.  Convinced  as  I  am  that  this  is  best  for 
me,  I  am,  after  all,  a  little  doubtful  if  I  have  resolution 
enough  to  carry  it  out.  The  obvious  advantages  I  need 
not  sum  up.  If  I  should  stay,  the  probability  is,  that 


MEMOIR.  97 

I  shall  lose  the  best  years  of  life,  and  cut  short  my  pe- 
riod of  labor,  without  accomplishing  my  object  after  all. 
I  shall  be  obliged  to  leave,  at  last,  worn  out  in  body, 
exhausted  and  stultified  in  mental  resources  and  power. 
But,  —  this  is  home  to  me,  and  I  have  no  other ;  en- 
deared by  all  sorts  of  local  associations,  and  sacred 
memories,  and  personal  attachments.  Then,  I  know 
the  freshness  of  interest  in  a  place  and  people  can 
never  be  quite  such  again,  though  the  attachment  might, 
in  time,  become  equally  strong;  and  I  hate  the  principle 
of  frequent  rupture,  so  common  and  so  disastrous  both 
to  minister  and  people.  Finally,  and  chief,  I  will  say> 
in  all  sincerity,  that,  feeble  and  unsatisfactory  as  my 
labors  are  here,  I  cannot  now  put  my  eye  upon  the 
available  man  who  would  do  more  or  better,  on  the 
whole.  I  will  not  leave  my  people  to  scatter  as  sheep 
having  no  shepherd.  I  am  bound  to  stay  by  them  till 
they  find  somebody  to  fill  my  place.  By  that  time,  the 
autumn  will  have  come,  and,  renewed  by  comparative 
rest  and  cooler  weather,  I  should  have  strength  to  work 
through  another  winter.  You  see  how  vacillating  and 
bothered  I  am.  Yet  my  judgment  is  clear  that  I  ought 
to  go." 

June  15. —  "You  have  several  impressions  that 
false,  and  that  I  wish  to  contradict.  First,  that  I  am  a 
martyr  to  my  own  devoted  labors.  If  it  were  so,  I 
should  be  content  to  die,  though  I  should  not  glory  in 
what  would  still  be  a  folly  and  a  sin.  I  am  simply  the 
culprit  of  nature,  suffering  the  penalty  of  violated  laws. 
It  is  n't  that  I  have  done  so  much,  or  worked  so  self- 
forgetfully,  Heaven  knows.  I  cannot  lay  that  flattering 
7 


98  MEMOIR. 

unction  to  my  soul.  I  have  worked  on  high-pressure, 
excessively  and  unreasonably  sometimes,  to  make  up 
for  indolence  and  neglect  at  other  times.  Please  say 
to  all  inquiring  friends,  that  I  am  neither  a  saint  nor  a 
martyr,  but  simply  a  weak  and  sinful  dyspeptic.  Then, 
as  to  my  people,  a  more  generous,  liberal,  considerate, 
patient,  forbearing,  yea,  long-suffering  parish,  Christen- 
dom does  n't  hold.  You  ought  to  know  that,  by  this 
time." 

July  3.  —  "I  shall  probably  make  no  more  exchanges 
this  summer.  I  read  my  request  for  a  dismission,  yester- 
day. Heaven  knows  I  have  no  wish  to  leave  Worces- 
ter county  or  my  own  people  ;  but  I  was  breaking 
down  under  the  futility  of  attempting  to  do  what  I  could 
not,  and  what,  for  all  my  efforts,  was  half  undone." 

July  7.  —  "I  am  glad  of  what  you  say  about  the  step 
I  have  taken.  I  hope  none  of  the  brethren  will  say 
anything  else.  It  has  cost  me  enough  not  to  be  both- 
ered by  being  told  that  it  was  a  mistake.  I,  at  least, 
am  perfectly  clear  about  it  as  a  matter  of  judgment, 
and  have  no  misgivings,  saving  and  except  the  prob- 
lem that  chiefly  haunts  us  now,  —  where  my  people  are 
to  find  a  man. 

"  The  parish  will  decide  the  matter  on  Monday.  I 
have  not  much  doubt  that  they  will  let  me  go,  —  not 
because  they  wish  me  to,  but  because  they  know  I  think 
it  is  best.  I  am  not  in  such  sorry  plight  as  to  justify 
the  demand  from  my  present  condition  merely.  I  shall 
be  in  preaching  order  hereafter,  I  trust,  and  well  as 
ever  by  the  first  of  October.  I  am  gaining  strength 
every  day.  But  this  has  been  my  experience  now 


MEMOIR. 


99 


these  four  summers,  —  is  likely  to  be  for  the  next  four. 
It  is  mean  and  miserable  to  be  disabled  thus  in  the  very 
cream  of  the  year.  My  plan  is,  to  recruit  six  months 
or  a  year ;  then  get  a  smaller  place,  and,  with  my 
stock  of  sermons,  start  fairly,  with  some  reserved  power 
and  a  prudent  expenditure  of  strength." 

Dorchester,  July  15.  —  "I  suppose  you  were  surprised 
at  my  resignation,  —  perhaps  hurt,  that  I  had  said  noth- 
ing to  you  about  it.  The  fact  is,  I  had  scarcely  con- 
sulted anybody ;  partly  because  it  was  unpleasant  to 
me  to  talk  about,  and  partly  because  it  was  a  matter  in 
which  nobody  was  so  competent  to  advise  as  I  was  to 
decide  for  myself.  It  was  not,  however,  a  hasty,  but  a 
long-meditated,  step.  My  judgment  was,  and  is,  per- 
fectly clear  about  it,  as  the  best  thing  to  do.  Not  that 
my  health  is  more  impaired  than  in  former  years,  but 
that  every  summer  brings  me  down  ;  and  thus,  for  all 
effective  labor,  the  very  best  part  of  the  year  is  lost.  It 
is  a  serious  detriment  to  the  parish,  and,  what  with  over- 
work, and  the  consciousness  of  much  undone,  is  wear- 
ing me  out.  The  parish  have  thrown  the  decision  back 
into  my  hands,  and  the  whole  matter  is  doubtful  and 
undetermined  as  ever.  If  my  judgment  dictates  one 
course,  my  feelings  counsel  another.  There  are  a 
thousand  reasons  why  I  should  stay,  among  which  these 
are  prominent :  my  own  strong  local  attachments,  the 
wishes  of  the  people,  the  difficulty  of  finding  a  substi- 
tute, and  the  hope  that  I  may  be  able,  after  a  year  or 
two,  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  place  better.  At  pres- 
ent, the  balance  in  my  own  mind  stands  in  perfect  equi- 
poise  The  probability  is,  that  I  shall  stay  till 

next  spring." 


100  MEMOIR. 

August  14.  — "  It  is  really  too  bad.  Here  I  have  been 
pining  in  solitude  and  idleness  a  whole  week.  What  a 
rare  pleasure  to  have  received  a  visit  from  you  !  Now 
I  must  go  to  Leominster,  and  to-morrow  to  Northfield, 
where  my  wife  has  been  for  a  week.  I  cannot  post- 
pone it,  because  she  expects  me..  I  stay  at  N.  a  fort- 
night or  longer,  preaching  my  farewell  at  Leominster 
the  first  Sunday  in  September.  About  the  middle  of 
Sept.,  I  expect  to  be  at  housekeeping  in  my  father's 
house  here.  So  I  shall  expect  to  see  you,  —  I  hope  a 
good  deal.  Can  you  not  be  present  at  the  Sept.  Asso- 
ciation at  Fitchburg? 

"  I  am  slowly  recovering  health  and  strength,  and 
have  distinct  and  brave  plans  for  the  future,  which  I 
cannot  stop  to  detail. 

"  Love  to et  al. 

"  Yours,  affectionately, 

"  H.  WITHINGTON." 

The  committee  to  which  was  referred  his  letter 
of  resignation  reported,  that,  in  consideration  of  the 
enfeebled  state  of  his  system,  and  the  little  hope  of 
a  permanent  recovery  so  long  as  his  connection 
with  the  parish  should  continue,  "  it  would  there- 
fore seem  to  be  the  dictate  of  wisdom  and  prudence 
to  comply  at  once  with  the  deliberate  judgment  of 
our  pastor,  who  best  knows,  by  experience,  the 
amount  of  labor  required  to  be  done,  and  the  meas- 
ure of  strength  required  to  its  full  performance."  In 


MEMOIR.  101 

accordance  with  this  report,  his  request  for  a  dis- 
mission was  granted,  July  31  ;  and  it  was  "  voted 
unanimously,  to  continue  his  salary  to  him  till  the 
first  day  of  November  next."  And  so  ended  his 
official  connection  with  his  church. 

As  the  appropriate  conclusion  of  this  record  of 
his  personal  labors,  I  transcribe  the  closing  portion 
of  his  farewell  discourse,  delivered  on  the  3d  of 
September  :  — 

"And  now  let  me  counsel  you  to  remember,  that,  in 
all  that  relates  to  the  great  subject  of  which  I  have  spok- 
en, you  have  your  part  to  do.  The  institutions  of  Chris- 
tianity depend  upon  you.  If  you  are  called,  as  I  trust 
you  will  not  be,  to  pass  some  months  with  a  changing 
and  uncertain  ministry,  do  not  on  this  account  absent 
yourselves  from  the  Sunday  service.  Feel  rather  that 
the  obligation  rests  upon  you  more  strongly,  to  be  regu- 
lar and  constant  in  your  attendance.  It  is  of  mo*re  im 
portance  that  the  fire  should  be  kept  burning  upon  the 
altar  of  the  sanctuary,  than  that  any  favorite  of  yours 
should  minister  at  that  altar.  The  institution  is  more 
than  the  preacher. 

"  I  need  not  say  to  you,  when  again  you  have  settled 
a  minister,  give  him  freedom,  attention,  power,  cooper- 
ation. I  need  not  say,  that  all  his  usefulness  depends  as 
much  upon  you  as  upon  him.  But  this  let  me  say,  for 
his  sake  and  yours.  Give  him  your  sympathy  and  con- 
fidence. Open  to  him  your  minds  and  hearts.  Entrust 


102  MEMOIR. 

him  with  your  spiritual  experience,  your  aims  and  strug- 
gles, your  difficulties  and  doubts.  You  will  thus  most 
effectually  aid  and  encourage  him  in  his  labors.  Thus 
will  he  be  better  enabled  to  understand  and  to  meet 
your  wants,  and  secure  the  best  influence  over  you, 
when  you  have  come  near  to  him  in  friendship  and  con- 
fidence. Thus  you  will  bestow  upon  him  the  greatest 
pleasure,  and  the  highest  reward  of  his  efforts.  Do  not 
wait  for  him  to  make  the  first  advances,  but  open  your- 
selves the  way  to  freedom  of  intercourse,  and  real  com- 
munion of  mind  and  spirit. 

"  There  is  nothing  more  disheartening  to  the  minis- 
ter, than,  month  after  month,  and  year  after  year,  to 
have  little  or  no  evidence  that  his  preaching  is  felt.  I 
do  not  mean  that  he  needs  to  have  it  commended  and 
admired.  This  mere  superficial  praise  of  his  ability  is 
very  often  an  insult  to  his  motives,  and  a  wound  to  his 
spiritual  sensibility.  It  is  worth  something,  of  course, 
to  know  that  his  pulpit  services  are  acceptable.  It  is 
infinitely  more,  to  know  that  they  are  profitable  to  his 
hearers.  Do  not  leave  him  to  doubt  of  this.  Do  not 
impose  upon  him  the  wearying  labor  of  visiting  you  at 
your  homes,  to  watch  in  vain  for  an  opportunity  of  com- 
ing near  to  you,  or  of  introducing  some  theme  of  con- 
versation more  profitable  than  the  iterated  trivialities  of 
common  intercourse.  Not  that  you  are  to  be  always 
possessed  with  the  idea  that  he  is  a  minister,  and  must 
be  treated  differently  from  others  because  he  is.  Meet 
him  as  a  man  and  a  friend.  Meet  him  with  freedom 
and  confidence.  And,  without  trying  to  talk  on  sober 
or  religious  subjects  as  matters  of  duty  or  propriety,  (a 


MEMOIR.  103 

most  constraining  and  profitless  attempt,)  if  you  have 
any  spiritual  vitality  in  you,  any  difficulty  that  asks 
counsel,  any  sentiment  that  seeks  utterance,  any  trouble 
that  craves  sympathy,  give  him  this  proof  of  your  trust 
and  regard,  that  you  be  willing  to  express  it  to  him. 

"  I  leave  you,  as  I  found  you,  a  united,  peaceful,  and 
church-going  people.  I  thank  God  for  that. 

"  I  have  said  little  of  my  own  ministry,  but  it  is  not  to 
be  supposed  that  I  have  been  able  to  forget  myself,  or  the 
fact  that  I  stand  for  the  last  time  in  this  pulpit  as  its  ac- 
credited organ.  Much  of  past  experience,  much  of 
deep  feeling,  much  that  I  would  gladly  say,  crowds 
upon  me. 

"  Of  my  labors  and  their  results  I  will  not  speak.  My 
stay  has  been  too  short,  my  work  too  much  broken  in 
upon  by  experiences  of  ill-health  and  trial,  to  warrant 
it.  I  am  too  sensible  of  my  own  deficiencies  and  fail- 
ures in  duty,  to  have  the  right  to  calculate  on  great  ac- 
complishments, or  even  to  say  I  have  done  what  I  could. 
I  cannot  but  feel  that  mine  has  been,  to  some  extent,  a 
baffled,  a  defeated,  and  an  unsuccessful  ministry.  And 
yet  I  should  not  utter  my  real  feeling,  and  certainly  I 
should  do  you  injustice,  not  to  speak  of  it  with  satisfac- 
tion and  with  thankfulness.  With  all  its  unrealized 
hopes,  its  unaccomplished  aims,  its  unfavorable  aspects, 
and  acknowledged  imperfections,  I  do  not  regard  it  as  a 
failure.  I  trust,  in  your  fidelity  to  the  privileges  of 
Christian  institutions  and  the  light  of  Christian  truth, 
that  my  humble  ministrations  have  not  been  profitless. 
What  any  minister  could  say  of  acknowledgment  to  any 
people,  I  can  say  truthfully  to  you.  Much  have  I  to 


104  MEMOIK. 

acknowledge  of  your  generosity  as  a  people  and  as  in- 
dividuals, your  patience,  your  candor,  your  charitable 
allowances  for  defects,  your  kindness  and  regard. 

"  To  surrender  the  increased  means  of  usefulness  of 
nearly  four  years  of  acquaintance  and  experience,  to 
leave  a  home  endeared  by  so  many  memories  of  joy 
and  sorrow,  to  break  away  from  all  the  personal  attach- 
ments and  the  local  associations  that  bind  me  to  the 
people  and  the  place,  this,  as  you  know,  it  has  cost  me 
a  long  struggle  to  decide  upon.  Very  gladly  would 
I  have  spent  my  life  here,  where  in  the  freshness  of 
hope  I  began  my  labors  as  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel. 

"  But  it  is  not  in  man  that  walketh  to  direct  his  steps, 
nor  is  it  for  him  to  question  the  wisdom  that  is  leading 
him.  And  I  leave  you  not  in  discouragement,  but  in 
faith  and  hope,  —  hope  for  myself,  that  I  shall  have 
strength  and  opportunity  to  fulfil  elsewhere  a  higher 
ministry,  through  the  experience  and  discipline  I  have 
had  among  you,  —  hope  for  you  too,  that  another,  strong- 
er in  health  and  in  ability,  may  lead  you  onward  to 
higher  attainments  in  the  Christian  life  of  thought  and 
of  love,  of  usefulness  and  devotion. 

"  Wherever  we  dwell  in  this  world  of  time,  the  same 
heavens  are  over  us,  and  the  same  benignant  presence 
is  around  us,  a  guide  and  a  protection.  However  apart 
our  lives  may  lie  henceforth,  the  sympathy  of  friendly 
regard,  of  common  thoughts  and  aims,  and  of  Christian 
faith  and  aspiration,  will,  I  trust,  unite  me  with  many 
among  you.  In  the  pleasant  memories,  and  the  kindly 
affections,  and  the  earnest  prayers  of  my  heart,  you  will 
always  hold  a  place. 


MEMOIR.  105 

"  And  now  may  all  good  gifts  abound  unto  you.  The 
faith  and  the  spirit  of  Jesus  abide  with  you,  sanctifying 
your  hearts  and  your  homes.  God  Almighty  keep  and 
bless  you,  in  joy  and  in  sorrow,  in  time  and  eternity. 
FAREWELL  ! " 

On  Friday,  the  15th  of  September,*  he  removed 
with  his  wife  and  child  to  Dorchester.  Having  an 
engagement  to  preach  at  Taunton  the  coming  Sun- 
day, feeling  unwell,  he  went  to  Boston  on  Saturday, 
to  procure  a  substitute.  Not  succeeding  in  this,  he 
was  obliged  to  set  off  himself  for  that  place.  On 
Monday  he  returned,  by  the  cars,  as  far  as  Roxbury, 
and  from  there,  failing  of  the  stage,  he  was  compelled 
to  make  his  way  home  on  foot,  through  the  wet  and 
rain.  On  reaching  home,  he  began  to  complain  of 
increasing  illness,  to  remove  which  he  resorted  to  his 
accustomed  remedies.  The  next  day,  and  the  day 
following,  being  no  better,  a  physician  was  sent  for. 
His  complaints  had  now  begun  to  assume  the  appear- 
ance of  fever.  From  this  time  he  grew  weaker  and 
weaker,  his  stomach  refusing  almost  all  nourishment; 
so  that  his  friends,  becoming  anxious  for  his  situa- 


*  The  subjoined  account  of  his  sickness  and  death  is  taken 
almost  wholly,  word  for  word,  from  the  account  given  me  by 
one  of  his  near  relatives  at  the  time. 


106  MEMOIR. 

tion,  consulted  other  physicians,  whose  opinion  was 
less  favorable  than  had  been  hoped. 

There  were  times  when  he  expressed  the  convic- 
tion that  his  Master  had  yet  some  more  work  for  him 
to  do.  Feeling,  however,  that  the  result  was  uncer- 
tain, he  early  embraced  the  opportunity,  from  day  to 
day,  as  he  felt  strong  enough  and  in  the  mood,  to 
make  his  will,  and  settle  his  business  affairs,  so  as  to 
leave  little  to  be  done  by  others  in  case  of  his  death. 
Being  asked,  on  one  occasion,  if  he  would  like  to 
know  the  opinion  of  his  physicians  respecting  his 
case,  he  replied,  "  Yes."  Being  told  that  he  was 
thought  not  likely  to  live,  he  looked  up  with  a  smile, 
and  said,  "  I  am  ready."  Apparently,  his  mind  was 
much  enfeebled  during  his  sickness,  his  bodily  and 
mental  powers  very  much  depressed,  and  his  frame 
nervously  irritable  ;  but  what  manifestations  there 
were  of  mind  and  feeling  showed  that  all  was  right 
within.  .He  seemed  perfectly  aware  of  his  condition, 
and  spoke  of  dying  with  the  utmost  composure  and 
tranquillity.  One  incident  afforded  him  particular 
pleasure.  His  former  Sunday  School  teachers  and 
scholars,  wishing  to  give  him  some  token  of  their 
affection  and  respect,  presented  him  with  a  hand- 
some, richly-bound  Bible.  When  the  gift  was  hand- 


MEMOIR.  107 

ed  to  him,  he  looked  at  it,  and  said,  u  They  do,  then, 
have  some  affection  for  me." 

For  three  or  four  weeks  from  the  commencement 
of  his  sickness,  his  friends  continued  to  cherish 
hopes  of  his  recovery  ;  but  now  symptoms  of  a 
more  alarming  character  began  to  show  themselves, 
—  paroxysms  of  chill  and  fever,  accompanied  on 
one  occasion  with  delirium,  —  which,  in  the  opinion 
of  his  physicians,  foreboded  a  fatal  termination  of 
his  disease.  These  attacks,  however,  were  not  of 
long  continuance,  and  gave  place  at  length  to  more 
favorable  indications.  His  food  digested  better,  his 
nights  were  more  tranquil,  and  his  mind  less  disturb- 
ed. This  apparent  improvement  in  his  condition 
continued  nearly  up  to  the  day  of  his  death,  a  period 
of  two  weeks  ;  so  that  his  friends,  who  had  now  be- 
gun to  indulge  the  hope  of  his  convalescence,  were 
taken  by  surprise  by  that  event.  On  the  morning 
of  his  decease,  he  was  observed  to  be  sinking  rap- 
idly, and  his  wife  was  called  in.  This  was  the  first 
time  of  her  entering  his  chamber  for  many  weeks. 
At  an  early  period  in  his  sickness,  she  had  been 
seized  with  fever,  and  separated  from  him.  He 
smiled  upon  her,  and  reached  out  his  hand,  but  was 
unable  to  speak.  His  death  took  place  on  Monday, 


108  MEMOIR. 

the  30th  of  October,  at  half  past  ten  in  the  morn- 
ing. It  was  afterwards  found  that  his  lungs  were 
much  diseased  ;  so  that,  in  the  opinion  of  his  med- 
ical attendants,  he  could  not  have  lived  long,  had 
he  escaped  the  present  sickness. 

On  Thursday,  November  2d,  his  remains  were 
taken  to  Mr.  Hall's  church,  where  a  funeral  service 
was  held,  and  an  address  made  by  Mr.  Hall.  They 
were  then  removed  to  Leominster  ;  and  the  day  fol- 
lowing, Friday,  a  funeral  discourse  was  preached  by 
Rev.  Calvin  Lincoln,  of  Fitchburg,  to  a  large  con- 
gregation, whom  respect  for  the  memory  of  the  de- 
ceased had  brought  together.  From  the  church 
the  body  was  conveyed  to  the  cemetery,  and  there 
deposited  in  its  last  resting-place.  In  the  words  of 
one  who  shared  in  these  solemnities,  "  It  was  the 
noon  of  a  beautiful  autumnal  day,  and  the  sun,  with- 
out a  cloud,  was  looking  down  upon  a  congregation 
in  tears,  for  he  was  now  preaching  to  them  his  last 
and  most  impressive  discourse.  The  young  pastor, 
who  had  come  to  them  in  the  full  tide  of  life  and 
hope  three  years  before,  who  had  walked  among 
them  so  holily  and  unblamably,  and  won  their  affec- 
tions, now  led  them  into  the  beautiful  grove,  where 
he  had  so  often  followed  to  soothe  and  sustain. 


MEMOIR.  109 

There  he  sleeps  beneath  the  virgin  soil,  while  the 
spring-flower  above  him  in  its  early  decay  shall  im- 
age to  the  heart  his  brief  life,  and  the  pine-trees, 
that  wave  over  him  in  their  perennial  verdure,  shall 
be  the  emblems  of  the  influence  which  he  has  left 
behind." 

"  Surely,"  writes  a  friend,  "  there  was  as  little 
of  earthly  training  left  for  him  to  carry  out,  as  there 
could  well  be  for  any  one.  God  could  use  him  bet- 
ter, and  has  taken  him.  But  for  us  I  can  say,  that 
I  had  no  truer  friend,  none  whom  I  valued  more,  or 
could  more  utterly  confide  in.  My  only  satisfaction 
in  his  leaving  Leominster  was  the  hope  that  he 
should  get  better  and  settle  somewhere  nearer  to  me. 
So,  indeed,  he  is,  if  one  had  only  the  spirit  to  feel 
it." 


SELECTIONS. 


SELECTIONS. 


THE  PRESENCE  OF  THE  DEPARTED. 

"  Are  they  not  all  ministering  spirits  ? " 

THE  sainted  Dead  !   think  you  they  linger  not, 
Nor  e'er  to  this  lone  world  return  again  ? 

Say,  do  they  not  revisit  each  loved  spot 

Whose  sight  doth  waken  such  a  thrilling  strain 
Within  our  longing  hearts  ?     O,  not  in  vain 

They  came  and  went,  —  nor  severed  are  those  ties 
That  bound  them  to  this  life  of  joy  and  pain;  — 

They  come,  —  they  come,  —  and  bid  our  spirits  rise, 
And  dwell  in  peace  with  them  beneath  the  heavenly  skies  ! 

They  are  about  us ;  —  as  when  Israel's  flight 
God's  spirit  guided  through  the  desert's  sand, 

In  cloud  by  day  and  fiery  lamp  by  night, 
And  led  in  safety  to  the  promised  land,  — 
So  round  our  path  these  guardian  spirits  stand, 

To  shield  us  'mid  temptation's  fiery  heat; 
In  sorrow's  night  to  take  us  by  the  hand, 

And  lead  us  gently  to  that  mercy-seat 
Whence  conies  celestial  light  to  guide  our  wandering  feet. 

8 


114  SELECTIONS. 

They  come,  where,  in  life's  weary  hours  of  care, 

The  fainting  heart  is  burdened,  tempted,  tried  ; 
Bringing  from  heaven  the  strength  to  do  and  bear, 

The  Father's  pitying  mercy  hath  supplied  ; 

Beneath  our  roof  at  evening  they  abide 
Like  angel-guests  whom  Abraham  fed  of  yore,  — 

Through  the  night's  stillness  watching  by  our  side,  — 
Giving  us  visions  of  the  world  before ; 
That  world  of  tranquil  rest  where  partings  come  no  more. 

God's  ministers,  they  watch  each  step  of  ours,  — 

The  loved  and  lost  that  on  life's  morning  smiled  ; 
Amidst  our  sleeping  and  unconscious  hours 

They  speak  within  our  hearts  in  accents  mild ; 

And  as  a  mother  soothes  her  fretful  child, 
With  words  of  strength  and  peace  our  souls  they  cheer: 

O,  could  we  calm  our  earthly  passions  wild, 
And  see  this  spirit-host  for  ever  near, 
We  ne'er  could  feel  that  all  alone  we  wander  here  ! 


SELECTIONS.  115 


ORDINATION  HYMN. 

THY  flock,  O  Lord,  are  scattered  wide, 

On  barren  heaths  they  roam, 
And  shepherdless  they  wander  far 

From  their  eternal  home. 
Lord,  bring  thy  wandering  children  back, 

And  soothe  their  mourning  cry; 
Lead  them  where  living  waters  gush, 

And  fair  green  pastures  lie. 

"  For  him  who  sat  by  Sychar's  fount 

Beneath  the  noontide  beam," 
Who  brought  for  every  thirsting  soul 

The  pure,  refreshing  stream, — 
For  him,  "  the  shepherd  of  the  sheep," 

Our  thanks  to  thee  we  raise  ; 
The  hearts  thy  truth  doth  sanctify 

Are  vocal  with  his  praise. 

Clothe  with  salvation  all  thy  priests  ; 

Their  minds  with  truth  inspire  ; 
With  power  and  grace  anoint  their  lips, 

^s  from  the  altar's  fire  ; 
Till  in  each  dark  waste-place  of  earth 

A  gladdening  fount  shall  spring, 
And  with  the  voice  of  joy  and  praise 

The  wilderness  shall  sing. 


LEOMINSTER,  1846. 


116  SELECTIONS. 


I. 

"  Are  they  not  all  ministering  spirits  ? " 

SOMEHOW  and  somewhere,  the  Infinite  Being  that 
surrounds  and  overshadows  us  will  meet  us  by  the 
way,  when  we  flee  from  danger  starting  up  in  our 
path  like  the  burning  fire  of  Horeb  ;  or,  when  we 
have  chosen  the  desert  of  wordliness  for  our  resting- 
place,  and  a  stone  for  our  pillow,  coming  in  a  night 
vision  to  tell  us  of  his  presence  though  we  knew  it 
not,  and  showing  us  how  we  might  have  lain  down  on 
the  pillow  of  God's  peace  with  a  blessed  sense  of 
the  angelic  guardians  that  watch  our  slumbers  still, 
despite  our  cold  unthankfulness. 

In  some  startling  or  afflictive  dispensation,  God 
makes  himself  known  to  every  man;  —  in  the  earth- 
quake that  prostrates  our  hopes  ;  in  the  fire  that 
consumes  our  idolized  treasures  ;  or,  it  may  be,  in  a 
still  small  voice,  coming  we  know  not  whence  or 
how.  So  have  some  hearts  been  turned  to  God  by 
the  serene  influences  of  nature  ;  and  some,  long 
withstanding  his  love,  have  sought  him  first  when 
danger  threatened  on  the  mighty  deep,  and  hope 
was  failing  in  the  heart,  and  there  was  nothing  left 
but  to  cry  unto  him,  "  Save  us,  or  we  perish  "  ;  and 


SELECTIONS.  117 

sometimes  the  Divine  presence  is  felt  first  when 
sickness  makes  the  strong  man  as  a  little  child  in  his 
weakness,  or  death  stares  him  in  the  face,  or  the 
agony  of  a  bereavement  tmcheered  by  faith  wrings 
his  heart.  But,  come  how  or  come  when  it  will,  it 
is  a  mercy  when  we  are  thus  recalled  to  ourselves, 
and,  like  the  prodigal  son  in  a  strange  land,  are  made 
to  feel  that  we  are  exiles  and  starving,  yet  in  our 
Father's  house  there  is  bread  enough  and  to  spare. 

Nor  am  I  speaking  only  of  those  whose  lives  are 
grossly  vicious  and  estranged  from  God  ;  but  of  you 
and  me,  of  all  of  us,  it  is  true,  too  true,  that  our 
faith  in  the  spiritual  world  is  not  the  reality  that  it 
should  be,  —  that  it  might  be.  And  I  would  vindi- 
cate the  providence  that  crosses  our  path  so  often 
with  a  shadow  of  evil.  It  is  not  evil,  if  it  bring  to 
us  the  light  and  the  growth  it  is  designed  to  minis- 
ter. At  whatever  price  we  may  purchase  a  living 
sense  of  these  great  realities,  let  us  pay  it  gladly. 
They  are  ministering  spirits,  these  providences,  sent 
to  open  our  eyes,  to  warm  our  hearts,  to  show  us 
higher  truth,  and  help  us  live  it  out. 

But  never  perhaps  are  we  made  to  feel  this  sense 
of  spiritual  realities  more  impressively,  never  comes 
so  clear  a  revealing  of  the  feebleness  of  our  faith, 
than  when  Death  enters  our  dwellings,  and  calls 
away  some  object  of  our  affections  and  our  hopes. 
In  the  first  shadow  of  our  great  affliction,  the  soul 
sits  dumb  ;  and  oftentimes  it  seems  that  the  very 


118  SELECTIONS. 

force  and  suddenness  of  the  shock  have  paralyzed 
our  power  to  feel  it.  And  when  the  power  conies 
rushing  back,  does  it  seem  as  if  our  very  being  had 
lost  itself  in  the  past,  and  we  live  over  again  its  glad 
and  happy  hours,  and  start  if  present  realities  force 
us  to  a  consciousness  of  our  loss  and  our  loneliness. 
O,  in  that  sea  of  the  Past  what  memories  and  joys 
like  shining  pearls  lie  buried  !  We  behold  them 
glistening  in  the  clear  depths  ;  we  seek  to  grasp 
them  again,  but  they  come  not  back  ;  and  slowly, 
slowly,  with  many  a  longing,  lingering  look  behind, 
we  turn  to  the  duty  of  the  Present,  and  the  hopes 
of  the  Future.  But  the  night  is  over  us,  and  the 
soul  is  wakeful,  watching  for  stars  to  light  its  path- 
way. And  thausolemn  night  of  sorrow  is  holy,  and 
the  stars  that  cheer  it  are  those  that  never  set. 

At  such  seasons,  the  great  mystery  of  life  presses 
heavily  on  us,  and  a  sense  of  our  ignorance  comes 
over  our  soul,  and  many  questionings  and  doubts 
come  upon  us.  Some  of  these  questions  I  would 
attempt  to  answer. 

And  perhaps  the  first  thought  that  rises  in  the  self- 
ishness of  our  grief,  if  it  be  not  a  murmur,  is  at  least 
a  question.  Why  should  this  trial  come  upon  me  ? 
Why  should  I  be  singled  out  for  this  affliction  ? 
And  to  this  there  is  but  one  answer,  the  answer  al- 
ready given,  that  the  wise  discipline  of  life,  incom- 
prehensible to  our  short-sightedness,  is  designed  to 
promote  our  highest  good.  We  must  believe  this. 
The  law  of  life  is  a  law  of  faith. 


SELECTIONS.  119 

But  perhaps  to  the  humble  heart  the  question  may 
assume  another  form.  Was  it  as  a  judgment  that 
this  trial  came  ?  a  just  retribution  for  my  sinfulness  ? 
Had  I  loved  my  friend  too  well,  and  so  God,  dis- 
pleased at  my  forgetfulness  of  Him,  hath  taken 
away  my  dependence  ?  No,  no.  Let  no  such 
thoughts  as  these  make  the  night  of  sorrow  darker, 
the  burden  of  bereavement  heavier.  Doubtless 
thou  didst  need  the  discipline  of  trial,  else  it  had 
not  come.  Thou  doest  well  in  seeking  to  learn  its 
lesson.  But  not  in  anger,  but  in  gentlest  mercy,  in 
tenderest  love,  was  it  sent  to  draw  thee  near  to  God, 
—  not  to  increase  thy  fear,  but  thy  trust.  And  lea^t 
of  all  because  God  was  jealous  of  thine  earthly  love 
did  he  remove  its  object.  Can  we  love  our  friends 
too  well  ?  We  may  love  them  too  selfishly,  and  so 
not  well  enough.  We  may  love  God  too  little  ;  but 
it  is  not  because  we  love  our  brethren  here  too  much. 
For  if  it  be  true  that  no  man  can  love  God  whom  he 
hath  not  seen,  except  he  love  his  brother  whom  he 
hath  seen,  it  is  also  true  that  the  more  we  love  God 
the  better  we  love  our  earthly  friends. 

And  next  to  these  inquiries  for  ourselves  come 
questionings  for  the  departed.  Why  passed  they 
away  when  we  seemed  most  to  need  them  ?  Why, 
when  their  hopes  were  brightest,  and  their  promise 
of  usefulness  was  fullest,  should  they  be  called  from 
us  ?  And  perhaps  the  only  answer  that  can  be  given 
is  that  which  bids  us  trust  and  be  still.  And  yet, 


120  SELECTIONS. 

even  to  our  sight,  there  are  considerations  which  may 
throw  light  on  these,  which  we  call  God's  mysteri- 
ous dispensations.  Remember  first  all  that  thy 
friend  hath  done  for  thee  while  yet  you  walked  to- 
gether here.  Will  not  the  remembrance  of  the  ten- 
der affection  and  the  virtuous  example  thou  \vert 
privileged  so  long  to  share  and  to  see,  — will  not  that 
have  new  power  over  thee  now  ?  Perhaps  the 
memory  of  the  dead  may  bless  thee  more  than  the 
presence  of  the  living.  Live  they  not,  —  those  who 
have  left  us,  —  live  they  not  still,  in  all  that  made 
their  life  pleasant  to  us,  all  that  makes  their  memory 
dear  ?  They  have  not  ceased  to  act  upon  us,  so 
long  as  we  remember  them.  Are  they  not  minis- 
tering spirits,  when  the  thought  of  them  keeps  us 
from  evil,  or  helps  us  to  live  higher  and  purer  ? 

But  is  this  all  ?  Is  there  not  something  more  than 
the  reflected  influence  on  our  character  of  the  lives 
that  have  closed  ?  Is  there  not  an  actual  presence 
of  the  departed  ?  No  word  of  revelation  hath  dis- 
tinctly spoken  it ;  but  it  is  a  theory  that  springs  up 
spontaneously  in  the  mind  ;  it  is  a  faith  natural  to 
the  heart.  Somewhere,  the  spirits  of  the  blessed 
find  scope  for  their  powers,  and  exercise  for  the 
soul's  benevolence  and  activity.  And  why  not 
here,  where  their  thoughts  and  affections  most  nat- 
urally turn  ?  Why  may  they  not  descend  to  bring 
an  answer  to  our  prayers,  in  holy  and  healing  influ- 
ences ?  Why  may  they  not  be  near  to  strengthen 


SELECTIONS.  121 

us  in 'the  time  of  duty,  to  watch  about  our  path,  and 
shield  us  from  impending  danger,  and  help  us  to  re- 
sist temptations  else  too  strong  for  our  feebleness  ? 
May  they  not  thus  be  ministering  spirits,  to  watch 
our  sleeping  and  to  shield  our  toiling  and  tempted 
hours  ?  The  strength  that  so  often  comes  with  be- 
reavement, —  a  strength  and  calmness  that  seem  mar- 
vellous and  superhuman  to  ourselves,  —  it  is  almost 
inevitable  that  we  refer  it  to  the  ministration  of  one 
whose  visible  presence  is  with  us  no  longer.  That 
we  should  ever  deem  this  to  be  a  visionary  faith, 
comes  of  our  material  temper,  and  our  little  convers- 
ance with  spiritual  things. 

Shall  we  know  the  friends  from  whom  we  have 
been  separated  by  death  ?  Shall  we  meet  them 
again  in  heaven  ?  How  eagerly  the  heart  answers 
this  question  !  Yes,  —  we  shall,  we  must.  It  is  a 
necessity  for  us  who  live  to  believe  it.  It  must  be, 
or  they  who  have  gone  from  us  would  miss  the  peace 
of  their  heavenly  home.  If  we  believe  in  immortal- 
ity at  all,  then  must  our  affections  be  immortal.  And 
surely  that  joy  which  eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear 
heard,  nor  the  heart  of  man  conceived,  must  com- 
prehend a  restoration  to  those  who,  though  long  un- 
seen, are  not  forgotten.  Reason  says  this,  and  the 
heart  demands  it  ;  and  we  must  confidently  believe 
it,  if  this  were  all.  But  not  only  does  the  spirit  of 
Christianity  imply  this  of  necessity,  but  Jesus  has 
expressly  affirmed  it.  "  Father,  I  will  also  that 


122  SELECTIONS. 

I 

they  whom  thou  hast  given  me  be  with  me  wttere  I 
am."  And  if  they  are  present  with  him,  then  also 
with  one  another.  And  if,  indeed,  we  could  con- 
ceive of  an  isolated  heaven,  where  we  should  be  shut 
out  from  the  society  of  our  brethren,  —  if  of  an  im- 
mortality that  annihilated  this  life  and  its  affections,  — 
then  would  heaven  be  a  worthless  gift,  and  immor- 
tality the  most  shadowy  delusion. 

December  13,  1845. 


SELECTIONS.  123 


II. 

"The  spirit  of  the  living  creature  was  in  the  wheels." 

ALL  thought  takes  form  in  one  way  or  another. 
Hence  we  learn  the  attributes  of  God  through  the 
material  universe.  We  know  a  man's  character  by 
the  dress  he  wears,  the  house  he  builds,  the  work 
he  follows.  The  tendency  of  everything  spiritual  is 
to  embody  itself  in  some  outward  shape  ;  and  the 
institution  is  the  shadow  of  the  thought  it  embodies, 
and  shows  plainly  enough  the  principle  it  is  founded 
on. 

But  if  institutions  show  the  character  of  individu- 
als and  societies,  it  is  no  less  true  that  they  go  con- 
tinually to  form  and  mould  that  character.  Every 
outward  form  is  the  sign  of  an  inward  thought  or 
feeling  ;  and  as  it  grew  out  of  that  thought  or  feeling, 
so  it  has  a  tendency  to  cherish  and  foster  the  same. 
Cruel  laws  tend  to  make  a  cruel  people.  Wicked 
rulers  reflect  back  their  own  character  in  those 
whom  they  govern  and  influence.  A  foolish  custom 
perpetuates  folly  in  those  who  practise  it. 

Once  more  :  when  you  do  away  an  institution,  you 
do  away  also  in  degree  the  spirit  or  doctrine  or 
thought  which  it  embodied  and  represented.  If  you 


124  SELECTIONS. 

could  do  away  common  schools,  you  would  also  less- 
en greatly  the  general  interest  in  education  ;  for 
while  the  institution  exists,  men  cannot  very  well 
forget  the  thing  it  stands  for.  So,  if  the  temperance 
organization  were  disbanded,  everybody  would  infer 
that  the  interest  in  the  cause  had  subsided  ;  and  the 
presumption  would  be  its  own  fu!61ment. 

There  has  been  amongst  us  of  late  years  a  mark- 
ed impatience  of  restraint  ;  a  clamorous  demand  for 
individual  freedom  ;  a  great  dread  of  organized  pow- 
er in  any  form.  This  tendency  is  observable  in 
church  and  in  state  alike,  designated  by  such  max- 
ims as,  That  is  the  best  government  which  governs 
least,  —  a  statement  of  very  doubtful  truth  ;  —  indi- 
cated by  the  numbers  that  forsake  our  churches,  and 
would  fain  make  the  whole  week  sacred  by  taking 
away  the  sacredness  of  the  Sabbath.  The  times 
call,  as  I  think,  for  a  strongly  conservative  move- 
ment in  these  respects.  We  must  have  some  out- 
ward machinery  to  do  the  work  of  society.  Let  us 
not  be  in  a  hurry  to  destroy  that  which  exists,  but 
rather  strengthen  the  things  that  remain.  At  least 
let  us  hold  to  that  which  is,  until  something  better  is 
offered  us. 

The  Christian  Sabbath  has  come  down  to  us  as  a 
time-honored  and  time-hallowed  institution.  We 
were  taught  to  keep  it  reverently,  strictly.  It  has 
done  us  good  so  to  keep  it.  It  is  a  sacred  trust, 
transmitted  to  us  from  our  ancestors,  and  woe  to  us 


SELECTIONS.  125 

and  our  posterity,  if  we  do  not  guard  its  sanctity 
from  desecration  !  And  the  same  thing  we  may  say 
of  public  worship.  If  any  man  believes  it  a  cus- 
tom which  promotes  the  public  good,  he  is  bound, 
whether  he  supposes  himself  to  be  benefited  or  not, 
to  give  it  his  countenance  and  support.  He  does 
not  stand  alone  in  this  matter.  It  is  no  question  of 
simple  individual  advantage.  It  concerns  the  public 
good  ;  and  a  man  who  would  discharge  his  duty  to 
society  cannot  hold  in  regard  to  it  a  neutral  position. 
These  things  are  not  duties  written  on  man's  nature, 

—  not  to  be  put  on  the  same  standing  with  the  law 
of  honesty,  truth  and  devotion  ;  but  they  grow  out 
of  our  existing  condition  ;  and  to  neglect  them  is  to 
sap  the  foundations  on  which  the  public  integrity  and 
public  devotion  rest.     Do  away  with  everything  that 
is  reverenced,  and  you  do  away  with  the  sentiment 
of  reverence  ;  it  has  nothing  to  cling  to  or  act  upon. 
The  spirit  of  the  living  creature  is  in  the  wheels  ; 
and  you  cannot  destroy  the  outward  form  without 
marring  the  inward  spirit. 

The  Christian  rites  of  Baptism  and  Communion, 

—  I  rest  these  on  the  same  ground,  as  claiming  re- 
spect for  the  individual's  welfare,  and  alike  for  the 
public  benefit,  because  they  enshrine  and  represent 
the   public   sentiment   of  veneration.      I   claim   for 
them  no  Divine  authority,  —  I  do  not  believe  they 
have  any,  —  but  I  do  claim  for  them  the  sanctity  of 
centuries  of  hallowing  associations,  the  sanctity  of 


126  SELECTIONS. 

Christ's  own  participation.  I  do  marvel  that  the 
parent's  heart,  into  which  God  hath  put  a  new 
song,  doth  not  rejoice  to  bring  to  this  temple  of  his 
praise  the  little  one  he  hath  given,  and  dedicate  it  to 
him.  Nor  to  the  parent  alone  doth  it  bring  a  bless- 
ing, but  to  many  a  heart  beside  ;  for  there  is  an  in- 
fluence in  the  hushed  stillness  of  the  baptismal  hour 
that  ofttimes  makes  the  old  man  weep  and  the  little 
child  hold  down  his  head  to  hide  the  gushing  tears. 
Bring  them  hither,  —  the  infant  ones,  —  that  their 
purity  may  hallow  the  air  we  breathe,  that  their  in- 
nocent presence  may  waft  to  our  hearts  a  benedic- 
tion. I  wonder,  too,  that  our  commemorating  rite  of 
discipleship  is  not  felt  to  be  a  greater  and  more  ob- 
ligatory privilege.  It  has  no  mysterious  efficacy, 
but  it  is  a  strength  and  a  help.  It  enshrines  a  sacred 
memory.  Why  should  not  the  disciple  thus  remem- 
ber the  Master  ?  For  thus  it  becometh  us  to  fulfil 
all  righteousness. 

March  7,  1846. 


SELECTIONS.  127 


III. 

"  A  wheel  in  the  midst  of  a  wheel." 

THE  distinction  of  body  and  spirit  is  universal. 
Everything  has  an  outward  form,  which  is  not  the 
thing  itself,  but  only  the  appearance  of  the  thing. 
Everything  has  also  an  inward  spirit.  Thus  we  call 
our  laws  and  rulers  the  government,  although  in  strict 
truth  they  are  only  the  shadow  or  form  of  the  gov- 
ernment, —  the  real  power,  the  soul  of  government, 
so  to  speak,  being  in  the  people,  from  whom  these 
laws  and  rulers  derive  their  authority. 

So  what  we  call  the  course  of  nature,  or  the  oper- 
ation of  material  laws,  is  nothing  more  than  the  way 
in  which  God  chooses  to  act,  — the  outward  form  in 
which  he  manifests  himself.  The  stars  revolve,  the 
wind  blows,  the  flowers  blossom,  because  God  is  in 
the  stars,  the  wind,  and  the  flowers. 

There  is  nothing  perhaps  of  which  we  may  not 
say,  that  it  has  a  body  and  a  soul.  Especially  is  this 
true  of  everything  with  which  man  has  anything  to  do. 
He  is  always  a  wheel  within  a  wheel.  Yet  some 
men  do  not  perceive  this.  They  never  see  God  in 
nature,  nor  ever  get  deep  enough  to  see  the  soul  in 
other  men's  actions,  or  to  put  any  soul  into  their 


128  SELECTIONS. 

own.  Have  patience  with  me,  and  I  will  show  you 
what  I  mean. 

You  are  going  out  to  ride,  I  will  suppose.  You 
go  for  your  own  pleasure  alone.  If  you  have  no 
higher  duty  claiming  your  time,  that  is  very  well,  — 
innocent  and  right.  But  it  occurs  to  you  that  your 
neighbour  has  a  sick  child,  and  so  you  take  him  with 
you,  and  try  to  amuse  him  and  make  him  happy  by 
the  way.  Now  is  it  not  plain,  that  your  ride  be- 
comes a  very  different  matter  ?  The  act  is  the 
same  ;  but  whereas,  in  the  one  case,  you  would  soon 
have  forgotten  the  whole  thing,  it  will  remain  with 
you  now  a  pleasant  recollection.  You  have  em- 
balmed it,  —  put  a  soul  in  it  ;  and  in  the  mirror  of 
eternity  it  is  reflected  back  upon  you  a  thousand 
times,  making  you  better  and  happier  when  you 
think  of  it. 

Or  you  are  going  out  into  your  field,  —  I  will  sup- 
pose you  are  an  irreligious  and  selfish  man,  —  and  while 
you  are  at  work  you  are  thinking  of  the  drudgery  of 
labor,  and  wondering  why  you  were  not  born  to 
riches  and  ease,  perhaps  with  an  envious  spite  call- 
ing to  mind  those  whose  lot  in  life  seems  brighter 
and  more  favored  than  your  own.  The  sun  beats 
hot  on  your  head.  Perhaps  you  are  impatient  at 
the  heat,  not  remembering  it  is  sent  as  a  blessing. 
Yes,  indeed,  you  are  a  poor,  pitiful  drudge.  Your 
lot  is  hard.  But  it  is  you  who  make  it  so.  The 
hardest  work  a  man  can  do  is  to  quarrel  with  Provi- 


SELECTIONS.  129 

dence.     The  heaviest  burden  a  man  can  carry  is  a 
thankless  heart. 

But  now  suppose  by  God's  grace  your  hard  heart 
melts  down  under  that  summer  sky.  A  sudden 
sense  of  your  ingratitude  and  of  God's  goodness 
comes  over  you  ;  and  sitting  down,  you  muse  upon 
the  past,  —  how  much  God  has  done  for  you,  how 
little  you  have  done  for  him.  Conscience,  long  dor- 
mant, awakes  in  your  breast.  You  grow  humble, 
contrite.  Penitence  comes  over  you  like  a  flood. 
Your  spirit  becomes  soft  and  gentle  as  a  little  child's  ; 
and  kneeling  there  in  the  shade,  with  tearful  eyes  you 
ask  God  to  forgive  and  bless  you,  —  to  help  you  to 
live  no  longer  for  yourself,  but  for  him,  —  to  strength- 
en you  to  keep  the  new  resolutions  that  are  springing 
up  within  you.  You  go  to  your  work  again,  a  sad- 
der and  a  wiser,  ay,  and,  strange  as  it  may  appear,  a 
happier  man.  And  now,  going  on  day  by  day  in 
the  new  life  you  have  begun  to  live,  everything  is 
changed  to  you.  You  see  that  labor  is  God's  ap- 
pointment, —  idleness  not  a  blessing,  but  a  curse. 
You  are  willing  to  work  when  you  feel  it  is  in  God's 
service,  and  for  the  sake  of  the  dear  ones  he  has 
given  you.  You  go  to  your  field  with  a  heart  full  of 
thankfulness,  and  your  very  labor  is  transformed  by 
the  change  in  yourself.  You  have  new  thoughts, 
and  many  more  than  before.  You  wonder  how  you 
could  have  been  deaf  and  blind  to  so  many  things. 
God  comes  and  works  with  you  in  that  furrowed 
9 


130  SELECTIONS. 

field.  His  smile  is  in  the  sunbeams  that  make  the 
earth  fruitful,  and  warm  your  heart  with  a  sense  of 
his  bounty.  You  hear  his  voice  of  love  in  the  song 
of  birds,  and  the  soft  rustling  of  the  corn-field  that 
sways  gracefully  in  the  summer  wind.  You  look  up 
at  the  clear  blue  sky,  and  think  of  the  peaceful  world 
your  childhood  was  taught  to  believe  lay  beyond  it  ; 
and  its  purity  and  peace  are  reflected  back  in  your 
own  soul,  filling  it  with  an  unspeakable  joy.  .  Mar- 
vellous change  !  And  ah1  this  is  not  a  fancy  picture, 
but,  thank  God,  a  great  and  blessed  reality  borne 
witness  to  in  many  a  man's  experience.  This  is 
what  I  mean  by  putting  a  soul  into  things.  This  is 
the  wheel  within  a  wheel.  O,  my  brother,  have 
you  got  beyond  the  outward  husk  of  things  ?  Have 
you  found  the  inner  soul  that  makes  them  living  ? 

March,  1846. 


SELECTIONS.  131 


IV. 

THE   CHILD'S  MISSION. 

THERE  is  a  mystery  about  that  new  life,  which 
impresses  us  almost  with  a  sense  of  awe.  We 
scarce  can  think  of  it  as  new  ;  and,  tracing  back  the 
spirit  to  its  author,  God,  we  follow  it  in  fancy  to  the 
world  of  God's  more  immediate  presence,  and  while 
we  speak  of  it  as  heaven's  gift,  we  half  believe  it  had 
a  preexistence  there. 

And  if  we  thus  follow  back  in  fancy  the  young 
spirit  to  its  source,  speaking  of  heaven  as  its  first 
home,  we  follow  it  also  into  the  future,  and  wonder 
what  its  life  shall  be  there.  "  The  child  is  father  of 
the  man";  and  we  wonder  what  sort  of  man.  All' 
the  possible  varieties  of  character  and  fate  appear  for 
the  moment  to  be  collected  into  that  diminutive  con- 
sciousness. That  which  may  be  the  germ  of  any  is 
felt  as  if  it  were  the  germ  of  all.  The  thread  of 
life,  which  from  our  hand  that  holds  it  runs  forward 
into  instant  darkness,  untwines  itself  there  into  a 
thousand  filaments,  and  leads  us  over  every  track 
and  scene  of  human  things  ;  —  here,  through  the 
passages  where  poverty  crawls,  —  there,  to  the  fields 
where  glory  has  its  race;  —  here  to  the  midnight  lake, 


132  SELECTIONS. 

where  meditation  floats  between  two  heavens,  — 
there  to  the  arid  sands,  where  passion  pants  and 
dies.  We  wonder,  almost  tremblingly,  what  its  life 
shall  be. 

To  the  Christian,  the  being  of  the  little  child  is 
not  the  wreck,  but  the  elements,  of  a  heavenly  exist- 
ence,—  its  better  life  lying  before  it,  not  behind.  It 
is  not  the  ruin,  but  the  design,  of  a  temple  not  made 
with  hands.  Its  glory  is  not  of  the  past,  but  of  the 
future  ;  its  experience  here  not  a  loss,  but  a  gain,  of 
truth  and  goodness  ;  this  earthly  life  not  the  extinc- 
tion of,  but  the  preparation  for,  a  spiritual  one.  It 
were  a  sadness  to  take  up  the  infant  life  as  if  it  were 
the  fallen  petals  of  a  celestial  flower,  borne  to  our 
feet  by  the  stream  of  things,  and  every  moment  fad- 
ing more ;  but  it  is  a  task  of  gladness  to  accept  it  as 
the  seed  and  germ  of  an  everlasting  growth,  which, 
planted  in  the  rock,  and  strengthened  by  the  storms 
of  earth,  shall  bloom  at  length  in  the  eternal  fields. 

To  nurture  the  faculties  of  conscience,  love,  and 
devotion,  to  guide  the  inquiring  spirit  of  childish  cu- 
riosity to  fields  of  useful  knowledge,  to  form  habits 
of  virtue  and  holiness,  to  give  right  ideas  of  God  and 
man,  of  duty  and  sin,  of  life  and  death,  of  time  and 
eternity,  —  this  is  a  responsibility  so  solemn  as  to  in- 
vest every  parent's  life  with  the  sanctity  of  a  divine 
mission.  When  you  consider  that  your  ignorance  is 
so  much  loss  of  knowledge  to  the  child  you  teach, 
that  your  failure  to  see  what  the  best  course  of  guid- 


SELECTIONS.  133 

ance  is  may  be  fraught  with  perilous  consequences 
to  his  present  and  eternal  weal,  — when  you  remem- 
ber that  the  atmosphere  of  home,  whatever  it  is, 
whether  of  jarring  discord  and  harshness  or  of  quiet 
and  gentle  love  and  peace,  will  stamp  itself  on  that 
yet  unstained  soul  entrusted  to  your  charge,  —  that 
all  your  faults  will  almost  inevitably  be  translated  and 
reproduced  there,  —  that  thus  your  discontent,  your 
repining,  your  fretfulness,  your  neglect  of  life's  du- 
ties, your  love  of  ease,  your  worldly  engrossment, 
your  forgetfulness  of  God,  all  your  follies  and  vices 
and  weaknesses,  will  be  reflected  in  the  countenance 
and  the  character  of  one  so  dear  to  you,  —  is  not 
the  gift  of  a  little  child  a  new  call  to  purity  of  life, 
and  a  fresh  consecration  to  duty  ?  And  as  Jesus 
said  of  his  disciples,  "  For  their  sakes  I  sanctify  my- 
self," so  should  the  parent's  heart,  with  a  solemn 
sense  of  the  high  commission  entrusted  to  it,  and  the 
great  responsibility  of  its  office,  on  the  altar  of  its 
thankfulness  dedicate  itself  afresh  to  God. 

It  is  a  blessed  thing,  that,  as  so  many  drop  away 
from  life,  and  of  those  who  started  with  us  in  its 
morning  freshness  so  few  remain,  these  new  beings, 
in  God's  merciful  providence,  are  sent  to  make  life 
still  a  thing  of  beauty  and  pleasantness  ;  to  save  the 
heart  alike  from  selfishness  and  misanthropy  ;  to 
quicken,  as  by  the  bestowal  of  a  second  youth,  its 
own  kindling  aspirations  ;  to  warm  the  affections  into 
a  new  life  ;  to  give  new  vigor  to  the  mental  ener- 


134  SELECTIONS. 

gies  ;  to  bind  the  heart  anew  to  man  ;  to  kindle  it 
afresh  with  a  devout  gratitude  to  God  ;  to  conse- 
crate it  again  in  the  vow  of  a  truer  fidelity.  The 
little  child  is  quite  as  much  the  teacher  as  the  taught, 
and,  I  had  almost  said,  forms  the  parent's  character 
in  as  great  a  degree  as  the  parent  influences  its  own. 
And  think  not  that  the  mission  of  the  little  child 
ends  with  its  life.  The  parting  spirit,  as  a  caged 
bird  let  loose  again,  may  early  fly  home  again  to  its 
native  heaven.  But  its  death  was  not  premature.  It 
has  done  its  work  ;  nay,  it  is  doing  it  still.  The 
light  of  its  love  hath  not  departed,  nor  the  influence 
died  out.  The  heart  once  blessed  with  a  parent's 
joy  is  for  evermore  so  blessed.  The  child  no  long- 
er present  is  yet  in  store  for  thy  weeping  eyes  and 
thy  longing  heart.  It  waits  there  in  that  upper  man- 
sion to  welcome  thee,  —  its  love  unquenched,  its 
innocence  unstained.  And  shrined  as  its  memory  is 
in  thoughts  of  purity  and  holiness,  is  not  such  a 
memory  a  preacher  and  a  benediction  ?  Does  it 
not  call  thee  to  a  purer  life,  and  keep  thee  near  to 
God  ?  Therein,  perchance,  its  death  may  bless  thee 
more  than  its  life  could  have  done.  There  is  noth- 
ing innocent  or  good  that  dies  and  is  forgotten.  An 
infant,  a  prattling  child,  dying  in  its  cradle,  will  live 
again  in  the  better  thoughts  of  those  who  loved  it, 
and  play  its  part  through  them  in  the  redeeming  ac- 
tions of  the  world,  though  its  body  be  burnt  to  ashes, 
or  drowned  in  the  deepest  sea.  There  is  not  an 


SELECTIONS.  135 

angel  added  to  the  host  of  heaven,  but  does  its  bless- 
ed work  in  those  that  loved  it  here.  Forgotten  !  O, 
if  the  good  deeds  of  human  creatures  could  be  traced 
to  their  source,  how  beautiful  would  even  death  ap- 
pear !  for  how  much  charity,  mercy,  and  purified 
affection  would  be  seen  to  have  their  growth  in 
dusty  graves  ! 

September  13,  1846. 


136  SELECTIONS. 


V. 

"  So  that  I  come  again  unto  my  father's  house  in  peace." 

IT  is  not  possible,  that,  speaking  to  you  on  this 
day  and  on  this  theme,  you  should  have  forgotten, 
or  I  should  have  been  able  to  keep  out  of  mind,  my 
own  experience.  I  had  shrunk  from  addressing  you 
to-day.  I  had  spoken  to  another  to  stand  here  in 
my  place.  It  seemed  that  I  could  not  do  it.  But 
I  felt  as  if  the  associations  of  the  day,  full  of  home 
as  they  are,  would  be  broken  in  upon  by  the  voice 
of  a  stranger,  instead  of  his  whose  highest  happiness 
it  is  to  feel,  that  he  speaks  to  those  who  acknowl- 
edge his  claim  as  friend  and  brother,  —  who  have 
shown  themselves  ready  to  \ejoice  in  his  joy,  to  sor- 
row for  his  sorrows.  I  felt  that  you  had  a  right  to 
my  poor  words,  and  that  they  would  be  more  wel- 
come than  those  of  another.  Pardon  me,  then,  that 
for  one  moment  I  thus  call  for  your  sympathy  in  al- 
luding to  myself.  It  is  not  to  cast  a  shade  over  the 
hopes  and  the  gladness  of  the  day,  but  to  deepen  the 
sense  of  your  own  blessings,  —  to  urge  you  to  a 
more  thankful  recognition  of  them.  And  there  is  a 
word,  that  is  pleading  so  strongly  in  my  heart  for  ut- 
terance that  I  cannot  but  speak  it. 


SELECTIONS.  137 

•  A  year  ago,  the  joy  of  a  new  hope  made  more 
dear  and  sacred  to  me  the  name  and  the  thought  of 
home.  The  shadow  of  desolation  that  fell  so  sud- 
denly upon  me  was  not  a  starless  night.  God  give 
unto  you,  if  any  similar  affliction  awaits  any  of  you, 
the  strength  and  the  consolation  that  his  mercy  has 
bestowed  upon  me.  The  early  blight  of  my  own 
hopes  has  not  taken  away,  perhaps  it  has  strength- 
ened and  deepened,  the  interest  and  the  sympathy 
with  which  I  regard  the  happy  family  circles  around 
me.  And  that  interest  has  been  immeasurably  in- 
creased by  the  hearty  welcome  you  have  given  me 
there,  and  the  kindly  sympathy  you  have  shown  me. 
Greatly  have  I  been  cheered  and  strengthened  by 
the  many  kind  attentions  I  have  received.  Very 
deeply  has  it  moved  me,  to  know  that  so  many 
hearts  were  feeling  for  me,  and  turning  toward  me 
the  softness  of  a  gentle  and  forbearing  friendliness, 
as  one  who  needed  to  be  dealt  with  tenderly.  I  can 
do  no  less  than  to  thank  you  for  it  all  to-day,  —  to 
thank  you  from  a  full  heart.  You  have  been  willing 
to  share  in  my  grief.  I,  too,  am  able  to  rejoice  in 
your  prosperity.  Can  I  do  less  than  invoke  a  bless- 
ing on  the  many  homes,  to  which  you  have  wel- 
comed me  all  the  more  affectionately  because  you 
remembered  that  my  own  home  had  been  made 
desolate  ? 

God  Almighty  bless  you,  my  people  !     Long  be 
the   circle  unbroken  that  gathers  to-day  about  the 


138  SELECTIONS. 

firesides  of  home  !  Long  may  it  be,  ere  one  of  those 
voices  be  missed  that  make  up  its  music  to-day  ! 

But  God  knoweth  best.  I  have  no  dearer  prayer, 
than  that  those  homes  may  be  Christian  homes  ; 
and  then,  come  joy  or  sadness,  they  shall  still  be 
blessed. 

I  have  no  better  wish  to  bestow  upon  you,  than 
that,  to  your  other  blessings,  manifold  and  great  as 
they  are,  God  may  add  this  day  the  greatest  and  the 
best  of  all,  —  the  blessing  of  a  thankful  and  trusting 
heart. 

November  23,  1846. 


SELECTIONS.  139 


VI. 

"  Take  heed  that  ye  despise  not  one  of  these  little  ones." 

THE  actual  results  of  the  Sunday  School,  I  am 
inclined  to  think,  have  been  exaggerated  ;  but  its 
real  importance  and  its  possible  results  are  still,  as  I 
believe,  far  from  recognized,  and  greatly  under-esti- 
mated. If  it  had  as  yet  accomplished  nothing,  if  it 
were  doing  no  good  at  present,  it  would  still  claim 
support  from  every  true  mind  from  what  it  promises, 
for  the  prospects  it  holds  out,  for  the  hopes  that  are 
garnered  in  it. 

The  Sunday  School  has  become  an  institution. 
It  is  established  over  a  large  part  of  Christendom. 
It  has  gained  a  strong  foothold.  An  interest  is  felt 
in  it.  It  has  enlisted,  more  or  less  warmly,  the  sym- 
pathies of  thousands  of  parents  and  children  and 
teachers.  Now  grant,  that,  through  unskilful  modes 
of  operation,  or  the  incompetence  of  teachers,  — grant 
for  a  moment,  that  at  present  it  is  doing  little,  —  if 
you  will,  that  it  is  doing  nothing,  —  and  then  it 
would  challenge  support  for  what  it  may  do,  what 
it  is  likely  to  do  hereafter.  The  machinery  is  there, 
ready  to  be  put  into  more  advantageous  operation, 
when  better  and  wiser  modes  of  action  shall  be  found. 


140  SELECTIONS. 

The  children  are  there,  ready  to  be  acted  upon. 
For  the  most  part,  the  battle  with  prejudice  and 
opposition  has  been  fought,  and  parents  look  upon 
it  with  a  considerable  measure  of  hopefulness  and 
confidence.  Suppose,  now,  that  it  were  every- 
where to  be  given  up  ;  how  long  do  you  think  it 
would  take  to  reestablish  it  in  its  present  extent  and 
strength  ?  You  could  not  reconstruct  it  in  half  a 
century.  The  spirit  of  opposition  would  spring  up 
again.  The  old  obstacles  would  have  to  be  sur- 
mounted. Slowly  and  laboriously  the  children  must 
be  gathered  in.  Confidence  must  be  reestablished. 
The  charm  and  excitement  of  novelty  no  longer 
operate  in  its  favor,  and  prejudice  strengthens  itself 
immeasurably  by  asserting  that  the  experiment  has 
been  tried,  and  proved  a  failure. 

So  long  as  the  Sunday  School  engages  the  inter- 
est, and  secures  the  support,  of  a  community  as  such, 
it  will  have  strength  and  vitality.  When  it  ceases  to 
be  popular,  and  is  the  movement  of  the  few,  and  not 
of  the  many,  then  it  will  dwindle  into  a  weak  and 
sickly  inefficiency.  Therefore  it  is,  that  every  child 
who  is  an  absentee  from  the  School  is  an  enemy  to 
its  existence.  He  becomes  the  centre  of  an  influ- 
ence hostile  to  its  life  and  growth.  Therefore  it  is, 
that  I  have  so  repeatedly  urged  upon  all  to  whom 
it  was  practicable,  the  old  and  the  young,  a  connec- 
tion in  some  way  with  the  Sunday  School.  The 
question  is  not,  simply,  whether  it  can  do  you  any 


SELECTIONS.  141 

good,  but  also  whether  you  can  do  it  any  good. 
It  has  claims  in  and  of  itself.  If  you  regard  it  as  a 
beneficial  and  valuable  institution,  then  you  ought  to 
consider,  that,  of  the  public  sentiment  and  sympathy 
which  is  its  strongest  support,  you,  as  an  individual, 
make  up  a  part.  You  are  responsible  for  the  way 
your  influence  goes,  and  for  the  degree  in  which  it 
is  exerted. 

Religious  teaching  always  implies  this  danger  to 
the  taught :  if  it  does  not  make  them  better,  it  will 
render  them  more  callous  to  good  influences  ;.  it  will 
chill  and  harden  the  soul ;  it  will  take  away  the  force 
of  truth,  and  the  power  of  moral  appeal.  There  is 
nothing,  in  fine,  which  is  more  deadening  in  its  in- 
fluence than  the  hearing  the  most  sacred  and  inspir- 
ing truths  without  being  moved  by  them.  Your 
great  object,  remember,  is  not  to  instruct,  not  to 
impart  knowledge,  but  principle  ;  to  strengthen  the 
sense  of  duty  ;  to  make  the  life  righteous  and  pure  ; 
to  sanctify  the  spirit.  You  cannot  give  a  spiritual 
life  you  do  not  yourselves  possess. 

O,  I  would  rather  send  a  child  out  to  spend  the 
blessed  Sunday  in  the  fields,  than  have  him  here  to 
listen  to  the  cold  and  idle  mummery  of  words  to 
which  the  teacher's  heart  lends  neither  life  nor  love  ! 
There,  as  he  wandered,  with  God's  loving  sunlight 
shining  round  him,  and  the  spring  breeze  kissing  his 
cheek  with  a  gentleness  like  that  paternal  presence 
that  enfolds  him,  the  glad  melody  of  birds  sounding 


142  SELECTIONS. 

in  his  ear,  and  the  flowers  of  an  Almighty  Benefi- 
cence upspringing  in  his  path,  —  there  his  spirit 
might  be  softened  and  his  soul  made  better,  his 
heart  attuned  to  purer  influences,  and  drawn  upward 
with  a  reverent  gratitude,  while  all  around  the  un- 
sentient  universe  hymned  the  great  Creator's  praise  ! 
At  any  rate,  he  would  be  saved  from  the  crushing 
and  paralyzing  chill  and  torpor  that  must  come  from 
a  heartless  teacher,  in  whom  a  child,  training  for  im- 
mortality, awakens  no  thrill  of  affection,  no  kindling 
inspiration,  and  from  whose  lips  the  words  that 
Jesus  spoke  fall  coldly  and  listlessly  as  the  current 
rumor  or  the  trivial  tale. 

But  I  know,  Teachers,  that  you  must  come  anx- 
iously, distrustingly.  So  you  ought.  Take  it  as  a 
hopeful  token  if  you  do.  And  yet  you  should  come 
in  confidence  ;  for,  be  sure,  whatever  want  of  com- 
petence you  may  feel,  with  whatever  consciousness 
of  unworthiness  you  may  assume  the  office,  yet  the 
faithful  effort  brings  God  down  to  help  you,  and  the 
true  spirit  gives  power  and  inspiration  to  the  feeblest 
words,  —  as  the  fire  of  Pentecost  touched  the  lips 
of  those  illiterate  Jewish  fishermen  with  a  baptism 
of  eloquence  that  none  could  gainsay  or  resist. 

May,  1847. 


SELECTIONS.  143 


VII. 

DUTIES  OF  PUBLIC  WORSHIP. 

THE  question  is  often  asked,  how  much  good 
preaching  does  ;  and  very  often  answered,  to  the 
preacher's  own  mind,  in  an  almost  utter  despair  of 
its  efficacy.  Considering  its  necessary  and  inevi- 
table deficiencies,  "  the  foolishness  of  preaching," 
as  the  Apostle  terms  it,  —  considering  the  state  in 
which  the  hearer's  mind  often  is,  and  how  many  dis- 
miss all  thought  of  it  the  moment  the  service  is 
over, —  one  cannot  but  feel,  sometimes,  a  doubt 
whether  it  does  accomplish  much.  And,  certainly^ 
considering  the  topics  discoursed  upon,  the  labor  of 
preparation,  ordinarily  but  poorly  appreciated,  and 
the  solemn  interests  involved,  one  may  be  pardoned 
for  saying  that  preaching,  with  all  its  imperfections, 
does  deserve  a  great  deal  more  attention  than  it  re- 
ceives. 

Brethren,  I  am  free  to  confess  it,  there  are  sea- 
sons when  preaching  seems  to  me  a  trivial  and  insig- 
nificant thing,  —  when  I  shrink  from  it  with  a  strong 
repugnance,  and  a  sickening  doubt  of  its  utility.  But 
these  are  the  times  when  I  am  thinking  of  my  own 
powers,  and  looking  about  for  outward  results  of  my 
own  efforts. 


144  SELECTIONS. 

But  there  are  other  times,  when  I  am  impressed 
with  admiration  and  a  solemn  awe  as  I  reflect  upon 
rny  office.  Then,  it  is  the  preacher  that  is  insig- 
nificant. Preaching  becomes  invested  with  a  sa- 
credness  and  a  grandeur  such  as  belong  to  no  other 
work  of  man.  I  look  back  to  the  early  days  of  the 
race,  when  the  voice  of  the  prophet,  solemn  and 
stern,  swayed  the  rude  nations  of  warlike  men  as 
the  tempest's  breath  makes  the  oaks  of  the  mountain 
tremble.  I  see  the  haughty  Saul  quailing  before  the 
presence  of  i  Samuel,  and  David  bowing  down  upon 
his  kingly  throne  as  the  words  of  Nathan  sank  into 
his  heart  with  the  weight  of  conviction,  "  Thou  art 
the  man  !  " 

I  glance  onward  in  the  records  of  history  to  later 
times,  when  the  loud  voice  of  Luther  rang  through 
all  Europe,  and  shook  the  grim  walls  of  that  impe- 
rial palace  at  Rome,  where  the  delegated  Hierarch 
claimed  to  hold  the  keys  of  heaven,  and  put  his  foot 
upon  the  neck  of  prostrate  kings.  Few  years  have 
passed  away,  and  Luther's  truth  has  filled  the  world. 

I  look  over  -the  earth,  and  see  the  nations  that 
rejoice  to  claim  the  name  of  Christian,  and  the 
countless  streams  that  flow  from  the  sacred  fount  of 
revelation.  I  look  back  to  the  origin  of  all  in  those 
eleven  men  of  Judea,  who,  with  death  before  them 
and  the  world  against  them,  went  forth  to  preach  in 
the  name  of  Jesus.  I  call  up  to  mind  his  venerable 
image,  as  he  walked  about  his  native  land,  an  humble 


SELECTIONS.  145  . 

man  among  the  humble,  teaching  by  the  well  of  Sa- 
maria and  in  the  fisher's  boat.  Then  it  is  that  I 
learn  to  estimate  the  dignity  of  preaching,  when  I 
contemplate  the  results  it  has  effected,  —  when  I  re- 
member who  have  borne  its  office. 

Then  I  no  longer  look  upon  my  work  distrust- 
ingly,  or  as  trivial.  I  tremble  before  its  majesty. 
I  am  amazed  at  my  own  presumption  in  assuming  it. 
Then,  when  I  think  of  the  materials  to  be  wrought 
upon,  —  the  wondrous  mechanism  of  human  souls, 
the  thinking  mind,  the  beating,  sensitive  heart,  mys- 
teriously responding  to  the  touch  that  sweeps  its 
thousand  chords,  the  godlike  energy  of  intellect  and 
will  that  lie  concealed  in  man,  constituting  him  the 
image  and  the  child  of  the  Infinite  ;  —  when  I  think 
of  the  themes  on  which  the  preacher  speaks,  —  the 
soul's  eternal  weal,  the  heaven  within,  the  immortal 
life  to  come;  —  when  I  think  of  the  instrumentali- 
ties put  into  his' hand, — the  truth,  the  words,  the 
life,  of  that  divine  Brother,  who  was  God's  Messiah 
sent  to  save  the  world,  —  then  it  seems  to  me  an 
unspeakable  privilege  if  I  may  be  the  humblest  ser- 
vant ministering  at  the  altar  of  God  to  such  beings, 
in  such  a  rTame,  and  for  such  ends. 

Then,  too,  I  remember  that  the  preacher,  to  fulfil 
his  high  commission,  ought  to  come  heaven-ordained  ; 
knowing  the  everlasting  relations  between  God  and 
man  in  his  own  experience  ;  his  soul  really  com- 
muning with  the  Infinite,  and  filled  with  His  holy 
10 


146  SELECTIONS. 

spirit  ;  burning  to  impart  the  same  godlike  con- 
sciousness to  others,  and,  by  the  vivid  light  of  his 
own  faith,  creating  it  in  those  who  feel  his  influ- 
ence ;  drawing  out  and  freshening  the  faded  colors 
of  the  divine  image  in  their  souls,  till  they,  too,  be- 
come the  prophets  and  the  sons  of  God. 

If,  indeed,  one  might  come  thus  consecrated  to 
his  work,  then  would  preaching  be  no  longer  the 
cold  and  powerless  thing  it  is.  Not  one  of  you  but 
would  go  home  wondering  at  the  divine  capacities 
God  has  poured  into  the  souls  of  men,  —  melted 
into  mingled  .gratitude  and  penitence  at  God's  ex- 
ceeding love  and  your  own  conscious  guilt,  and 
making  in  your  inmost  soul  vows  sanctified  by 
prayer,  that  the  revelations  you  had  heard  should 
not  be  lost  upon  you,  but  bring  forth  fruits  manifest 
to  God's  all-seeing  eye,  in  holy  hearts  and  lives  de- 
vout and  true. 

August  22,  1847. 


SELECTIONS.  147 


VIII. 

"  Jesus  Christ  himself  being  the  chief  corner-stone." 

THERE  is  another  class  of  errors  which  it  was 
my  purpose  to  speak  of  more  particularly.  It  con- 
sists in  cutting  off  from  Christianity  this  or  that  fea- 
ture or  element  as  neither  essential  nor  important. 
For  example,  there  are  many  who  speak  of  devo- 
tion as  mere  cant,  or,  at  least,  as  an  entirely  super- 
fluous and  delusive  thing  ;  whose  language  is,  "God 
does  not  need  or  ask*  our  prayers  ;  we  can  do  noth- 
ing for  him  ;  the  best  service  we  can  render  him  is, 
to  do  good  to  our  fellow-men."  I  do  not  censure 
these  persons.  They  do  but  express  their  own 
sincere  conviction.  But  I  cannot  but  pity  them. 
For  to  lose  the  faith  in  God  as  ever  present,  and  as 
drawing  near  to  the  soul  in  answer  to  its  prayers,  to 
lose  the  spirit  and  forego  the  privilege  of  devotion, 
seems  to  me  a  loss  greater  than  any  earthly  loss  can 
be.  To  me,  life  would  be  of  small  account,  nay, 
it  would  be  an  intolerable  burden,  if  1  knew  that 
never  again  I  could  lift  my  soul  to  God  in  thankful- 
ness or  petition,  with  a  real  faith  that  he  would  hear 
me.  Yet  I  know  that  many  of  those  of  whom  I 
speak  may  be  better  men  than  myself.  It  takes  a 


148  SELECTIONS. 

\ 

great  and  an  uncommon  virtue  to  be  just  and  be- 
nevolent and  faithful  towards  man  when  this  spirit- 
ual faith  in  God  is  lost.  And  I  cannot  help  it,  that, 
while  I  honor  in  all  sincerity  the  philanthropy  I  see 
in  such  persons,  I  am  led  to  doubt  the  permanency 
of  its  foundation.  I  know  that  sympathy  for  man 
will  do  much,  that  the  love  of  justice  is  a  principle 
inherent  in  the  human  heart  ;  and  yet,  to  separate 
humanity  from  devotion,  —  the  love  of  man  from  the 
love  of  God,  —  I  confess  human  virtue  seems  too 
weak,  human  nature  too  frail  and  dependent,  to  bear 
the  fruit  of  a  sound  morality  and  a  self-sacrificing 
benevolence  that  has  not  its  root  in  love  and  trust 
towards  God.  To  take  away  from  Christianity  its 
devotional  element  is  to  rob  it  of  its  spirituality,  and 
(to  my  own  conviction)  to  take  away  the  main  source 
of  its  power. 

There  is  another  class,  who  consider  the  belief  in 
the  history  of  the  Gospel  to  be  of  very  small  account. 
The  miraculous  claims  and  the  infallible  authority  of 
Jesus  seem  to  them  not  important  to  make  one  a 
Christian.  Christianity  is  a  spiritual  thing ;  it  be- 
longs to  the  heart.  If  they  have  the  truth,  it  is  no 
matter  how  or  whence  it  comes,  or  whether  attested 
by  miracles  or  not.  I  cannot  judge  for  others,  but, 
for  myself,  I  must  say,  that,  if  Christ's  words  were 
not  to  me  of  the  most  certain  and  undoubted  au- 
thority, there  are  many  questions  of  duty,  now  clear 
as  the  sunlight,  that  would  be  involved  in  the  dim- 


SELECTIONS.  149 

mest  uncertainty.  There  are  many  doctrines,  most 
precious  and  consoling,  that,  to  say  the  least,  would 
become  vague  and  doubtful.  I  should  hardly  tfust 
in  prayer.  I  should  hardly  feel  confident  of  a  per- 
sonal immortality.  There  would  still  be  a  God  ; 
but  I  cannot  but  feel  the  tender  and  blessed  name  of 
a  Father  would  be  one  I  should  not  venture  to  give 
to  a  Being  so  infinitely  removed  from  my  compre- 
hension. In  fine,  if  the  miraculous  claims  of  Jesus 
are  denied,  I  could  give  but  little  weight  to  what 
remains  of  the  gospels,  coming  as  it  does  from  men 
singularly  deceitful,  or  singularly  capable  of  being 
deceived. 

Again,  there  are  those  who,  disgusted  with  the 
tenacity  with  which  the  sectarian  has  clung  to  doc- 
trines the  most  unimportant,  and  the  exclusiveness 
he  has  manifested  toward  those  who  dissented  from 
him,  have  come  to  regard  the  whole  matter  of  doc- 
trine as  a  thing  of  small  importance.  It  is  no  mat- 
ter, say  they,  what  a  man  believes,  if  his  life  be 
upright  and  pure.  Certainly,  this  statement  is  per- 
fectly reasonable,  —  if  his  life  be  upright  and  pure. 
But  when  you  have  told  me  what  a  man's  doctrine 
is,  I  know  what  his  life  will  be,  if  he  sincerely  be- 
lieves it.  The  one  grows  out  of  the  other,  as  a 
plant  from  the  seed.  A  man  who  believes  God  to 
be  revengeful,  will  feel  warranted  in  being  so  him- 
self. He  who  thinks  there  is  no  difference  in  the 
condition  of  men  after  death,  will  lose  one  of  the 


150  SELECTIONS. 

great  sanctions  and  safeguards  of  virtue.  He  \vho 
thinks  human  nature  totally  depraved,  may  well  ex- 
'cuse  many  corrupt  and  wicked  actions,  charging 
them  to  the  account  of  Adam's  fall,  and  not  his 
own  sin  ;  while  one  who  has  half  persuaded  himself 
that  man  has  no  free-will,  and  cannot  do  otherwise 
than  what  he  does,  will  not  strive  much  to  resist 
temptation,  unless  he  sees  the  penalty  very  close  at 
hand,  and  very  certain. 


September  5,  1847. 


••>*K> 


! 


SELECTIONS.  151 


IX. 

"  A  cloud  of  witnesses." 

THE  simplicity  and  the  commonness  of  the  state- 
ment finds  its  abundant  excuse  in  its  necessity.  A 
cloud  of  witnesses, — yes,  there  are, — visible  and 
invisible,  beholding  our  sins  and  our  unfaithfulness, 
and  bearing  testimony  before  God  to  every  act. 
Suppose  any  one  of  us  to  pass  at  this  moment  into 
the  solemn  realities  of  the  spiritual  world.  Imag- 
ine that,  having  left  behind  your  fleshly  vestment, 
you  stand  in  the  midst  of  God's  universe,  a  soul 
undisguised,  unshielded,  and  perfectly  open  and 
transparent  to  the  pure  eye  of  God  and  all  spiritual 
beings.  It  must  be  that  at  that  very  moment  the 
dread  account  of  life  should  begin,  —  the  judgment 
of  Heaven's  retributive  tribunal.  And  who  are  the 
witnesses  ?  Let  us,  in  imagination,  conceive  of 
them  as  they  rise  up  before  us. 

First,  there  is  the  inward  consciousness  of  guilt, 
—  an  all-sufficient  witness.  Conscience,  no  longer 
blinded  by  the  mists  and  delusions  of  sophistry,  no 
longer  silenced  by  the  refusal  to  hear  its  voice,  sees 
clearly,  and  speaks  plainly.  The  soul's  eye  is 
opened  and  cannot  be  shut,  but,  by  an  irrevocable 


152  SELECTIONS. 

doom,  must  look  in  upon  itself.  The  tablets  of 
memory,  from  which  the  hand  of  death  has  brushed 
away  the  oblivious  dust  that  gathered  beneath  the 
body's  wrappages  in  the  soul's  journey  through 
time,  shall  display  now  the  secrets  of  a  life,  —  the 
sins  of  youth,  forgotten  in  after  years  ;  the  hidden  mo- 
tive, skilfully  concealed  before  ;  the  secret  thought, 
over  which,  it  had  been  fondly  deemed,  the  mantle 
of  forgetfulness  was  for  ever  thrown  ;  the  deed  done 
in  darkness,  when  no  mortal  eye  beheld.  Written 
there,  in  eternal  chronicles  on  the  soul's  imperish- 
able being,  all  shall  stand  revealed  ;  and  not  a  word 
spoken,  or  a  deed  done,  or  a  thought  conceived, 
but  we  shall  read  it  there. 

Nor  these  alone  will  memory  summon  up  ;  but 
there  shall  rise  the  long  catalogue  of  wasted  hours, 
and  misused  privileges,  and  opportunities  neglected, 
and  resolutions  broken,  and  vows  unfulfilled  ;  the 
countless  blessings  of  Heaven,  winning  us  to  the 
love  and  service  of  God  ;  the  words  of  counsel  and 
entreaty  to  which  we  have  turned  a  deaf  ear,  —  per- 
haps a  father's  anxious  warning,  perhaps  a  mother's 
tearful  prayer,  despised. 

Then,  too,  the  crushed  and  neglected  powers  of 
the  spiritual  nature  shall  assert  their  claims.  And  it 
shall  need  no  outward  voice  of  reproof,  but  it  shall 
feel  within  itself  the  voice  of  God,  saying,  "  I  gave 
thee  a  capacity  and  a  thirst  for  knowledge, — how 
hast  thou  neglected  and  despised  the  gift  !  I  gave 


SELECTIONS.  153 

thee  a  sense  of  truth,  a  nature  of  affection,  —  how 
hast  thou  crushed  the  one  and  profaned  the  other  ! 
I  gave  thee  a  spiritual  aspiration,  an  inborn  thirst 
for  holiness,  —  how  hast  thou  corrupted  and  de- 
based the  immortal  soul,  to  do  the  bidding  of  the 
body's  lusts  !  Thou  mightest  have  been  an  angel 
of  light  in  wisdom,  in  virtue,  and  in  love.  How  art 
thou  fallen,  to  be  a  grovelling  worm  of  the  dust !  " 

But  the  witnesses  shall  not  be  all  within.  The 
soul  shall  summon  them  from  the  east  and  the  west, 
from  the  north  and  the  south  ;  yea,  into  things  in- 
animate will  a  voice  be  put.  For  who  has  not 
known  the  strange  and  mysterious  conviction  of  sin 
that  sometimes  even  here  forces  itself  upon  the 
guilty  from  everything  around  him,  and  how,  some- 
times, after  a  deed  of  evil,  a  man  trembles  at  every 
rustling  leaf,  and  fears  to  look  up  lest  he  should  read 
the  doom  of  punishment  in  the  first  object  he  be- 
holds ?  He  feels  that  his  dreadful  secret  is  betrayed 
in  his  countenance.  The  stars,  the  moonlight,  glance 
a  lightning  reproof.  The  still  water,  as  he  looks  into 
it,  glows  back  upon  him  the  reflection  of  his  own 
haggard  face,  and  he  trembles  like  one  who  sees 
some  horrible  phantom.  He  shrinks  from  the  eye 
of  his  fellow-man,  feeling  that  it  will  look  into  liis 
dark  breast  and  read  the  history  that  he  reads  there 
so  plainly.  And  how  much  more  vivid  will  all  this 
be,  when  the  unveiled  soul  can  by  no  possibility  find 
a  hiding-place  from  itself,  or  cover  up  from  others' 
sight  its  inward  vileness  ! 


154  SELECTIONS. 

There  shall  gather  round  us,  in  imagination,  in 
that  awful  hour,  those  nearest  in  kindred,  —  the 
little  circle  of  home.  O,  if  then  a  parent  bears  the 
unwilling  testimony  to  the  child's  disobedience,  — 
if  then  the  consciousness  is  forced  home  upon  the 
soul,  that  a  parent's  gray  hairs  went  down  in  sorrow 
and  in  shame  to  the  grave  for  its  unfaithfulness,  — 
if  then  comes  the  bitter  thought,  that  the  child,  God's 
mercy  gave,  lived  dishonored  and  died  despairing, 
through  a  parent's  neglect  or  a  parent's  example, — 
then  what  untold  agony  shall  roll  in  floods  of  bitter- 
ness upon  that  soul ! 

But  there  are  other  things  for  which  retribution 
comes,  —  sins  of  omission,  as  well  as  commission, 
—  of  neglect,  as  well  as  positive  wrong. 

Methought  I  stood,  a  disembodied  soul,  before 
the  throne  of  God.  And,  lo  !  the  countless  nations 
of  men,  all  who  have  lived,  were  summoned  there. 
Slowly,  and  in  successive  trains,  they  passed  before 
that  throne  of  God,  and  I  beheld  them  all. 

And  first  there  came  a  spectre,  hideous  and  pale, 
and  following  with  slow  and  feeble  steps  the  children 
of  Want.  And  from  their  lips  arose  a  feeble,  plain- 
tive cry  that  smote  the  heart  with  a  desolate  sad- 
ness  ;  and  that  infinite  eye  turned  full  on  me  its 
searching  glance,  and  I  felt  it  say,  "What  hast 
thou  done  for  these  ?  " 

And  then  there  came  one  riding  on  a  black  horse, 
an  iron  sceptre  in  his  hand.  And  him  there  followed 


SELECTIONS.  '    155 

the  millions,  on  whom  he  had  laid  his  bloody  scourge, 
clanking  their  chains,  and  crying  with  a  wail  that  rent 
the  very  heavens.  And  then  a  noise  of  many  thun- 
ders, and  I  heard  a  fearful  voice  which  said,  "  Woe 
to  him  that  hath  beheld  Oppression  in  the  earth,  and 
hath  not  pleaded  for  the  oppressed  that  had  no  ad- 
vocate !  " 

And  then  I  saw  one  rushing  swiftly  past,  with 
maniac  stride,  and  in  his  bosom  burned  a  fire  of 
glowing  coals.  And,  as  he  went,  he  scattered  fire- 
brands, arrows,  and  death.  Him  there  followed,  with 
a  riotous  shout,  a  multitude  that  no  man  could  num- 
ber, and  on  every  face  the  curse  of  Drunkenness 
was  writ.  And  yet  again  I  felt  that  awful  eye,  and, 
as  I  looked,  I  saw  one  there  whose  face  I  knew, 
and  my  heart  sank  down  within  me  ;  for  I  had  seen 
him,  a  young  man,  going  down  that  fearful  road  to 
death  and  hell,  and  had  not  warned  him  ! 

Again  came  one  fearful  to  look  upon,  and  bearing 
in  his  hand  a  bloody  sword.  He  rode  upon  a  white 
horse,  which,  as  he  trod,  mangled  and  crushed  at 
every  step  the  bleeding  forms  of  men.  And  him 
there  followed  Death  and  Pestilence  ;  and  his  mur- 
dered victims  —  a  tenth  part  of  all  that  ever  peopled 
the  broad  earth  —  came  after,  and  from  their  blood- 
less lips  there  rose  a  groan,  that,  like  the  roar  of 
many  waters,  shook  the  sky,  and  called  for  mercy 
and  for  justice  ! 

Yet  once  again  my  eye  pierced  through  the  infinite 


156  »  SELECTIONS'. 

space,  and,  at  a  glance,  I  saw  the  gathered  myriads. 
Yet  once  again  the  famished  children's  wail  broke 
on  my  ear,  — yet  once  again  I  heard  the  drunkards' 
mocking  shout,  the  clank  of  heavy  chains,  and  the 
loud  groan  that  spoke  War's  horrible  woe  ;  and  then 
a  voice  from  every  soul  among  that  infinite  host,  that 
shook  the  throne  of  God,  and  said,  "  We  are  the 
witnesses  /"  And  I  heard  another  voice  say,  "  In- 
asmuch as  ye  have  not  done  it  unto  the  least  of  these 
my  brethren,  ye  have  not  done  it  unto  me." 

September  5,  1847. 


SELECTIONS.  157 


X. 

• 

"  No  man  liveth  to  himself." 

EVEN  when  one's  opinion  is  perfectly  clear  and 
sound  to  his  own  mind,  it  does  not  follow  that  he 
has  a  right  to  preach,  to  print,  or  to  promulgate  it. 
He  ought  first  to  judge  concerning  the  probability  of 
its  being  rightly  understood,  and  having  a  good  influ- 
ence in  the  world.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  foolish 
talk  about  the  safety  of  speaking  the  truth.  "  Is  not 
a  man  bound  to  utter  the  truth  ?  The  truth  can  do 
no  harm."  There  is  a  great  deal  of  truth,  that  is  at 
present  of  very  little  value  ;  as,  whether  Methusaleh 
lived  as  long  as  he  is  said  to  have  done,  whether 
Cephrenes  built  the  pyramid  that  bears  his  name,  or 
whether  (as  Christians  have  fiercely  contended)  the 
light  that  shone  around  our  Saviour  at  his  transfigur- 
ation was  created  or  uncreated.  Nor  is  one,  though 
always  bound  to  speak  the  truth,  if  he  speak  at  all, 
always  bound  to  speak.  There  is  great  virtue  in 
speech,  and  we  are  apt  enough  to  forget  our  obliga- 
tions to  utterance.  But  there  is  often  as  great 
merit,  and  as  strong  an  influence,  in  silence.  It  is 
yet  again  to  be  considered,  even  though  we  were 
to  admit  that  truth  can  do  no  harm,  whether  one  is 


158  SELECTIONS. 

quite  sure  he  has  the  truth  ;  and,  if  it  should  turn  out 
error  after  all,  how  far  he  will  be  held  responsible 
for  its  results. 

-  Finally,  I  deny  the  main  principle  contended  for, 
—  that  the  truth  must  always  do  good,  and  can  nev- 
er do  harm.  Under  certain  circumstances,  and  in 
certain  states  of  mind,  you  would  not  tell  a  person 
of  his  faults,  though  it  might  do  him  good  to  know 
them.  Jesus  did  not  controvert  many  popular  de- 
lusions, —  as  the  ascribing  of  insanity  to  the  influ- 
ence of  evil  spirits,  —  and  often  taught  truth  in  para- 
bles, on  purpose  to  render  it  obscure.  Paul  fed  his 
converts  with  milk,  and  not  with  meat,  because  they 
were  not  able  to  bear  it.  Certain  truths  may  be 
clear  enough  to  you,  may  even  be  a  blessing  and  a 
comfort  to  you,  which  another  would  receive  so  par- 
tially, or  so  entirely  pervert,  as  to  render  them  abso- 
lutely harmful  to  himself.  Some  truths  are  more 
important  than  others  ;  and  the  lesser  must  be  learn- 
ed, oftentimes,  before  the  greater  can  be  fairly  appre- 
hended. You  would  not  try  to  teach  a  child  flux- 
ions, before  he  had  mastered  simple  addition.  And 
sometimes,  the  pure,  simple  truth  would  do  great 
harm.  If  the  slaves  could  see  the  injustice  of  their 
masters,  and  feel  the  evils  of  their  oppression,  as 
you  and  I  see  and  feel  them,  they  would  not  be  re- 
strained by  moral  or  Christian  principle  from  rising 
in  mutiny  and  violence  to  redress  them,  themselves. 
I  would  not  proclaim  to  them  my  sense  of  their 


SELECTIONS.  •  159 

wrongs,  if  I  had  the  opportunity.  So  I  would  not 
speak  in  the  hearing  of  children  of  what  I  consider- 
ed the  faults  or  mistakes  of  their  parents. 

There  is  great  looseness  in  the  popular  view  of 
responsibility  for  opinions.  All  wrong  action  grows 
out  of  false  principles  of  action,  or  at  least,  the  ab- 
sence of  true  principles.  Want  of  truth  makes  want 
of  goodness.  Slavery  owes  its  existence  to  false 
ideas  of  liberty  ;  war,  to  false  views  of  national  mo- 
rality and  honor.  The  Inquisition  was  sustained  by 
the  doctrine  that  it  was  just  and  right  to  sustain 
God's  true  Church  by  violence,  and  to  save  men's 
souls  by  punishing  them  for  heresy.  There  are 
some  persons  now,  who  deny  the  sanctity  of  mar- 
riage, the  right  of  private  property,  the  obligation  to 
obey  laws,  the  existence  of  any  retribution  beyond 
this  life  ;  —  doctrines,  whose  prevalence  would,  I 
think,  be  in  the  highest  degree  pernicious.  The 
fact  is,  one  is  just  as  responsible  for  the  formation 
of  his  opinions  as  of  his  habits, — for  the  influence  of 
his  words  as  of  his  actions.  There  is  no  separat- 
ing the  two  things.  There  can  be  no  distinction 
between  them.  Truth  is  the  foundation  of  goodness. 
Our  actions  grow  out  of  our  belief.  And  he  who 
forms  his  opinions  without  thought,  and  recklessly 
promulgates  them  without  regard  to  their  influence, 
is  as  one  "that  casteth  firebrands,  arrows,  and  death, 
and  saith,  Am  I  not  in  sport  ?  " 

Let  it  not  be  supposed,  that,  in  thus  uttering  my 


160  SELECTIONS. 

view  of  duty,  I  am  condemning  any  man's  opinion  or 
conduct.  No  Scripture  is  of  private  interpretation, 
nor  would  I  be  thought  to  deny  to  another  the  liber- 
ty I  claim  for  myself.  But,  as  I  had  stated  the 
duty  of  Christian  non-conformity,  it  seemed  fitting 
to  state  also  its  limitations.  • 

The  true  reformer  never  assumes  to  be  a  saint, 
or  proclaims  himself  the  only  faithful  man  in  the 
world.  He  quietly  speaks  out,  and  lives  out,  his  own 
conviction,  calling  upon  other  men  to  speak  and  to 
live  out  theirs.  Nor  is  the  Christian  non-conformist 
troubled  or  angry  at  the  misunderstanding  or  abuse 
of  others.  He  is  no  martyr  who  is  always  calling 
upon  the  world  to  see  how,  he  is  persecuted,  and 
how  well  he  bears  it.  •  Of  all  things,  this  is  the  last 
he  thinks  of.  He  is  too  much  concerned  for  the 
truth  to  think  of  himself.  And  noble  Stephen,  when 
he  dies,  says  nothing  of  the  stones,  but  is  rilled  with 
the  glory  of  the  heaven  above  him,  and  only  remem- 
bers his  murderers  with  a  prayer. 

March  25,  1848. 


SELECTIONS.  161 


XL 

"  Yesterday." 

I  ADDRESS  this  sermon  to  the  young.  My  text, 
children,  is  "  Yesterday."  You  can  all  remember 
it,  —  "  Yesterday." 

Children  are  generally  thinking  -so  much  of  the 
future,  —  of  what  they  are  to  do  to-morrow,  or  when 
they  grow  up  to  be  men  and  women,  —  that  they  do 
not  often  stop  to  look  back.  I  remember,  that, 
some  years  ago,  passing  through  a  piece  of  woods,  I 
walked  hastily  on,  looking  only  before  me,  till,  after 
half  an  hour,  I  was  surprised  to  find  myself  almost 
at  the  very  spot  from  which  I  had  set  out.  I  had 
started  to  go  to  my  father's  house  ;  but  had  strolled 
along  so  heedlessly,  that  I  had  actually  turned  about, 
and  was  walking  in  an  opposite  direction.  I  have 
often  thought  of  this  since,  and  it  has  seemed  to  me 
a  good  illustration  of  the  way  in  which  many  live. 
For  life  is  a  journey,  and  it  ought  to  be  a  journey 
towards  our  heavenly  Father's  house,  —  the  home 
of  the  good  and  faithful.  But  is  it  not  often  so,  that 
many,  who  set  out  with  their  faces  turned  towards 
that  home,  suffer  themselves  to  wander  heedlessly, 
till  their  steps  lead  further  and  further  away  from  it  ? 
11 


162  SELECTIONS. 

• 

If  we  would  know  where  we  are,  and  which  way  we 
are  travelling,  we  must  sometimes  stop  and  look 
back. 

What  should  you  think,  if,  this  spring,  some  farm- 
er should  neglect,  week  after  week,  to  plant  his  fields, 
and  should  say  to  his  neighbours,  when  they  asked 
him  about  it,  "  O,  I  intend  to  have  as  fine  a  harvest 
as  any  body,  but  you  see  I  have  not  made  up  my  mind 
yet  what  to  plant  "  ?  You  would  say  he  was  either 
foolish  or  crazy.  But  how  is  it  with  you  ?  This  is 
your  spring-time  of  life.  What  did  you  plant  yes- 
terday ?  You  know  what  I  mean,  —  what  kind  of 
words  and  thoughts  and  actions,  that  will  bring  their 
harvest  years  hence.  Do  you  not  know  ?  Then, 
are  you  not  the  foolish  person,  who  has  not  made 
up  his  mind  what  to  plant  his  field  with  ?  If  the 
field  is  left  unplanted  all  spring  and  summer,  then 
nettles  and  thistles  and  weeds  will  spring  up  and 
grow  of  themselves,  and  that  is  what  he  will  have  to 
gather  in  when  harvest-time  comes. 

One  of  the  things  you  want  to  learn  is,  to  be  in- 
dustrious, —  to  make  a  good  use  of  time.  I  dare 
say  that  many  of  you  have  looked  often  towards  the 
top  of  Wachusett,  and  wished  you  could  be  there 
for  a  little  while.  But  it  is  tiresome  to  climb  up  the 
mountain  ;  and  what  if  some  boy,  who  wanted  to  see 
the  view,  should  go  and  sit  every  day  at  the  foot, 
and  wish  he  could  be  at  the  top,  but  never  take  one 
step  toward  ascending,  because  the  way  is  steep  and 


SELECTIONS.       ,  163 

hard  ?  Now  growth  in  goodness  is  like  climbing  a 
mountain.  We  must  go  on,  step  by  step,  with  la- 
borious effort.  Well,  how  was  it  yesterday  ?  You 
want  to  learn  to  make  a  good  use  of  time.  Were 
you  any  more  industrious  than  before,  or  did  not  you 
try,  because  it  was  so  hard  ? 

Do  not  suffer  yourself  to  think,  that  yesterday  was 
only  a  small  part  of  life,  —  that  it  is  of  no  conse- 
quence if  it  was  lost.  Life  is  all  made  up  of  min- 
utes, and  unless  you  use  the  minutes  well,  it  will  all 
be  lost.  On  the  tops  of  high  mountains  you  will  see 
little  streams  starting  and  flowing  down  the  rock.  At 
first,  they  are  fine  and  small  almost  as  little  threads ; 
you  could  stop  them  with  your  finger  ;  but  they  flow 
on,  and  soon  others  join  them,  and,  as  they  descend, 
more  and  more  unite,  till  at  length  they  make  a 
brook  ;  and  then  several  of  these  brooks  running  to- 
gether make  small  rivers,  and  these  make  large  ones  ; 
— r  so  that,  when  you  trace  back  the  great  river  that 
is  miles  across, -whose  rapid  current  sweeps  along 
hundreds  of  boats  and  great  vessels,  you  find  it  all 
beginning  in  the  little  silver  streams  on  the  top  of  the 
mountain. 

Do  not  think,  of  any  bad  action,  "  It  is  only 
once,  —  it  cannot  do  much  harm,  —  I  will  never  do 
it  again."  You  have  seen  boys  in  the  winter  slide  or 
coast  down  a  steep  hill.  They  move  slowly  at  first, 
but  all  the  time  the  motion  becomes  swifter  and 
swifter,  till  they  reach  the  foot,  and  then  it  costs 


164  SELECTIONS. 

much  more  time  and  effort  for  them  to  get  back  to 
the  top  again.  Is  not  this  like  one  who  is  growing 
worse  every  day  ?  He  is  going  down  hill  faster  and 
faster,  though  he  does  not  know  it.  Is  it  true  of 
any  of  you,  that  yesterday  you  became  worse  and 
not  better,  — went  down  the  hill  instead  of  ascending 
it? 

I  have  read,  that,  as  two  men  were  building  a  ship, 
they  came  to  a  piece  of  timber  that  had  a  worm-hole 
in  it.  The  question  was  asked,  "Shall  we  put  it  in  ?" 
"It  is  but  a  single  hole,"  says  one,  "  and  a  small  hole 
too."  So  they  made  use  of  the  timber.  The  ship 
went  to  sea  ;  but  the  worm  was  still  there,  gnawing  ; 
and  at  length,  through  this  unsound  timber,  the  ship 
sprung  aleak,  and  went  to  the  bottom.  So  it  is 
with  your  character.  Every  bad  word  you  speak, 
every  wrong  act  you  do,  may  be  likened  to  the  worm 
in  the  ship.  You  may  think  it  is  but  one,  and  a 
little  one  ;  but  it  will  eat  up  the  purity  and  soundness 
of  your  character,  and  in  the  end  you  may  learn, 
when  it  is  too  late,  what  a  dreadful  mistake  it  was 
to  suppose  that  any  wrong  thing  could  be  of  little 
consequence.  Was  there  some  such  thing  in  your 
experience  yesterday,  — something  which  conscience 
told  you  was  wrong,  but  which  you  excused  because 
it  was  a  little  thing  ?  If  you  can  think  of  such  a 
case,  then  remember  how  the  little  worm  at  last  de- 
stroyed the  great  ship. 

Once,  as  a  child  sat,  on  a  summer's  evening,  under 


SELECTIONS.  165 

a  shady  tree,  he  fell  asleep.  And  he  dreamed  that 
three  bright  and  beautiful  angels  stood  over  him. 
And  while  he  wondered  at  the  sight,  one  of  them 
spoke  to  another,  and  said,  "  I  have  brought  this 
garment  of  pure  white,  and  this  white  lily  that  will 
never  fade,  to  bestow  upon  him  who  is  spotless  and 
good."  And  the  boy  saw  that  on  the  angel's  fore- 
head was  written  its  name.  It  was  Innocence. 
Then  the  other  angel  spoke  in  reply,  —  "  Look  in 
this  glass,  which  I  hold  in  my  hand,  and  you  will  see 
the  picture  of  this  sleeping  child's  life  to-day.  See 
how  he  has  been  disobedient  and  thoughtless  and 
passionate,  and  has  forgotten  God  and*  his  prayers. 
I,  too,  would  have  given  him  this  basket  of  precious 
jewels,  but  I  cannot  bestow  them  on  such  a  one." 
Then  the  boy  read  the  angel's  name  in  her  fore- 
head. It  was  Memory.  Then  spoke  the  third 
angel,  —  "  I,  too,  would  have  given  him  this  golden 
crown,  if  he  had  been  true  and  good."  And  her 
riarne  the  child  read.  It  was  Hope.  Then  the 
sleeper  trembled  when  he  remembered  how  he  had 
spent  a  wicked  and  thoughtless  day.  And  the  an- 
gels bent  their  bright  eyes  sadly  upon  him,  and  Hope 
said,  "  We  will  meet  here  again  in  a  year  from  this 
night."  Then  they  suddenly  vanished,  and  the 
sleeping  boy  awoke. 

Very  sadly  he  thought  of  his  dream.     But  he  re- 
solved to  live  from  that  time  a  better  life.     And 


166  SELECTIONS. 

every  night  he  went  and  sat  on  the  same  green  bank, 
and  called  up  all  he  had  done  during  the  day,  and 
repented  when  he  remembered  that  he  had  done 
wrong.  Winter  came,  and  he  could  no  longer  go 
to  the  shady  bank.  But  as  soon  as  the  ground  was 
bare,  and  the  grass  began  to  spring,  and  the  violets 
blossomed,  he  would  go  again  at  evening,  and  sit 
under  the  tree.  And  so  the  year  came  round,  and 
again  he  fell  asleep  there  of  a  summer's  night.  And 
in  his  dream  the  three  angels  came  again  and  smiled 
on  him.  "  Now,"  said  Memory,  "  I  can  give  him 
the  box  of  jewels,  — the  precious  gems  of  virtue, 
and  the  recollection  of  good  deeds,  of  kind  and  pure 
words  and  happy  thoughts,  better  than  all  the  wealth 
in  the  world."  "  And  I,"  said  Innocence,  "  will  give 
him  now  the  lily  that  never  fades,  the  spirit  of  cheer- 
ful gladness,  and  the  white  robe  of  purity,  such  as 
the  angels  wear."  "  And  I,"  said  Hope,  "  have 
brought  for  him  now  the  golden  crown."  Then  the 
sleeping  child  thought  he  beheld  himself  lying  there, 
with  the  golden  crown  on  his  head,  and  the  lily  in 
his  hand,  and  he  was  clad  in  the  white  robe  of  Inno- 
cence and  the  jewels  of  Memory  ;  and  in  the  sky 
above  him  he  heard  the  sound  of  music,  and,  look- 
ing up,  he  saw  many  bright  ones  with  harps  in  their 
hands.  The  stars  rose  in  the  sky,  and  the  moon 
shed  its  light  on  the  child's  face,  and  still  he  slept 
on.  And  they  found  him  in  the  morning,  a  sweet 


SELECTIONS.        •  167 

smile  on  his  lips,  as  though  he  were  in  a  pleasant 
dream.  But  his  eyes  never  opened  on  this  world 
again.  His  spirit  was  not  there.  That  had  gone 
up  with  the  angels. 

April,  1848. 


168  SELECTIONS. 


XII. 

THE  UNPARDONABLE  SIN. 

WHOSOEVER  SPEAKETH  AGAINST  THE  HOLY  GHOST,  IT  SHALL 
NOT  BE  FORGIVEN  HIM,  NEITHER  IN  THIS  WORLD,  NEITHER 
IN  THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  —  Matt.  xil.  32. 

THESE  words  of  Jesus  have  given  rise  to  much 
speculation  ;  and  many  a  tender  and  sensitive  con- 
science has  applied  to  itself  the  guilt  and  the  con- 
demnation of  the  unpardonable  sin.  Is  there,  then,  a 
sin  so  heinous,  that  God  refuses  to  pardon  its  com- 
mission, even  when  repented  of  ?  Can  man  incur 
such  a  measure  of  guilt,  that  the  infinite  Father  shall 
turn  his  face  for  ever  away  from  him,  and,  unsoftened 
by  his  penitence  and  deaf  to  his  pleadings,  exclude 
him  hopelessly  from  the  joy  of  his  blessing  and  the 
heaven  of  his  presence?  Neither  in  nature,  in  rea- 
son, nor  in  Scripture,  does  such  a  statement  find 
support. 

Nevertheless,  there  is  an  unpardonable  sin  ;  —  un- 
pardonable, not  because  God  will  not  forgive  it,  but 
because,  in  the  nature  of  things,  he  cannot ; —  unpar- 
donable, not  because  the  Divine  mercy  is  ever 
refused  to  the  penitent,  but  because  it  implies  a  con- 


SELECTIONS.  169 

dition  of  soul  which  will  not  repent.  The  obstacle 
is  not  in  God's  implacability,  but  in  the  sinner,  — 
the  obstinacy  of  man  himself.  The  forgiveness  of 
the  Deity  is  infinite  as  his  being.  It  is  not  limited 
by  human  transgression,  or  the  years  of  mortality. 
There  can  be  no  sin  that  is  greater  than  God's  mer- 
cy ;  —  there  can  be  no  period,  in  time  or  eternity, 
at  which  the  possibility  of  forgiveness  ceases.  God 
is  committed  by  his  justice,  as  well  as  his  mercy,  — 
bound  by  his  immutability,  as  well  as  his  love,  — 
pledged,  by  all  his  attributes,  —  to  forgive  sin,  when- 
ever forgiveness  is  made  possible  by  compliance 
with  the  only  condition  of  forgiveness,  a  sincere  re- 
pentance. But  there  is  a  state  of  mind  which,  while 
it  exists,  makes  forgiveness  an  impossibility,  because 
repentance  is  an  impossibility. 

The  narrative  in  the  gospels  makes  it  very  clear 
what  this  sin  is.  The  Jews,  wilful  in  their  blind- 
ness and  prejudice,  misrepresented  the  doctrines, 
and  impugned  the  motives,  and  derided  the  claims, 
of  Jesus.  They  heaped  upon  him  obloquy  and 
abuse  ;  they  assailed  him  with  invective  and  ridi- 
cule. And  when  they  could  not  deny  the  reality  of 
his  miracles,  they  endeavoured  to  invalidate  their 'tes- 
timony and  destroy  their  influence  by  ascribing  them 
to  the  agency  of  evil  spirits.  "  He  casteth  out 
demons  by  Beelzebub,  the  prince  of  the  demons." 
It  was  this  malicious  .charge  that  gave  rise  to  the 
words  of  Jesus.  It  was  a  small  thing  to  him  that 


170  SELECTIONS. 

they  should  treat  his  person  with  contempt,  and  turn 
his  words  to  a  mocking  jest  ;  but  when  he  saw  them 
resisting  their  own  convictions,  and  denying  the  mani- 
fest agency  of  God,  he  felt  that  they  were  shutting 
themselves  out  from  the  last  appeal  that  could  be 
made,  —  resisting  the  only  evidence  that  remained 
to  be  brought  in  support  of  the  truth  that  would 
save  them.  Then  he  says,  Say  what  you  will  about 
me,  the  Son  of  Man,  —  treat  me  as  your  passion 
and  prejudice  counsel ;  —  all  that  I  do  not  heed,  — 
in  that  you  act  blindly,  and  may  be  forgiven.  But 
when  the  finger  of  God  heals  the  sick  in  a  moment, 
and  restores  reason  to  its  throne  in  the  mind  of  rav- 
ing insanity,  and  touches  your  own  hearts  with  a  re- 
sponsive throb  of  conviction, — then  if  you  resist  the 
evidence, — if  you  blasphemously  say  it  is  not  the 
finger  of  God,  but  the  work  of  a  demon,  —  then 
are  ye  hopelessly  lost  in  your  unbelief  and  your 
hardness  of  heart.  While  you  are  in  such  a  con- 
dition, there  is  no  pardon  and  no  salvation  for  you. 

It  is  plain  that  the  condemnation  cannot  apply  to 
any  soul,  however  guilty,  that  is  conscious  of  guilt, 
and  sincerely  seeking  deliverance.  It  is  applicable 
only  to  a  state  of  utter  hardness,. that  has  no  feeling 
of  guilt,  —  of  wilful  blindness  and  indifference,  that 
neither  desires  nor  asks  for  the  way  of  salvation. 

Nor  is  it  in  relation  to  simple  unbelief  that  Jesus 
is  speaking.  It  was  not  strange  that  the  Jews  re- 
jected his  claims.  They  saw  him  as  a  stranger,  and 


SELECTIONS.  171 

could  not  know  the  lofty,  virtue  and  divine  purity  of 
his  life.  They  knew  him  only  as  the  humble  Naza- 
rene,  and  could  not  easily  be  brought  to  regard  him 
as  the  princely  Messiah.  The  prejudices  of  long- 
cherished  opinion,  the  strong  associations  of  early 
education,  national  pride,  and  superstitious  venera- 
tion, —  everything  in  their  mental  condition,  and  in 
their  external  circumstances,  was  most  unfavorable 
to  their  reception  of  the  truths  he  taught.  To  be 
sure,  they  were  witnesses  of  his  wonderful  works  of 
healing  ;  but  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  multitudes 
among  them  laid  claim  to  the  same  miraculous 
power.  So  that,  when  we  come  to  lake  all  this 
fairly  into  account,  we  shall  see  that  unbelief  in 
Christ  was  neither  so  strange  nor  so  criminal  then 
as  now.  The  Jews  had  noX  a  tenth  part  of  the 
evidence  in  support  of  his  claims  that  we  have. 
And,  in  our  day,  the  fact  of  unbelief  in  Christianity 
may  imply  little  or  no  positive  guilt  in  the  skeptic. 
A  man's  convictions  cannot  be  forced.  They  are 
not  subject  to  his  will.  Christianity  may  never  have 
been  presented  to  him  in  its  true  form,  but  only  a 
distorted  and  repulsive  view  of  it.  The  arguments 
by  which  it  is  sustained  may  not  have  been  brought 
before  his  mind.  Early  associations  and  opinions, 
the  influence  of  which  he  cannot  at  once  throw  off, 
may  keep  him  long  in  a  state  of  wavering  doubt  or 
positive  rejection.  Or,  again,  —  and  the  case  is  a 
very  common  one,  — a  person  may  consider  himself 


172  SELECTIONS. 

an  unbeliever  in  Christianity,  simply  because  he  re- 
jects the  common  statement  and  the  popular  form  of 
Christianity  ;  when,  all  the  while,  he  has  thought 
more  and  not  less  about  it  than  most  men,  and,  if 
he  only  knew  it,  really  believes  in  Christ  more 
heartily,  and  has  a  purer  conception  of  Christianity, 
than  the  great  majority  who  boast  the  name.  With 
all  such  persons,  unbelief  is  a  misfortune  and  not  a 
sin,  —  an  incalculable  loss,  but  scarcely  implying 
guilt.  Their  position  demands  of  us  pity,  but  not 
censure,  —  to  convince,  but  not  to  condemn. 

But  there  is  a  state  of  unbelief  which  is  not  to  be 
spoken  of  so  leniently.  It  is  the  most  unpardonable 
and  the  most  hopeless  condition  into  which  the  soul 
of  man  can  sink.  It  is  that  to  which  Jesus  plainly 
refers.  It  has  three  distinguishing  characteristics, — 
a  false  life,  an  indifference  to  truth,  and  an  irreverent 
spirit. 

It  is  denoted,  first,  by  a  false  life.  I  do  not  mean, 
simply,  a  life  that  falls  below  the  Christian  standard, 
or  below  the  standard  of  any  other  person  ;  but  a 
life  that  is  false  to  the  convictions  of  the  individual 
himself.  We  have  no  right  to  judge  an  unbeliever 
in  Christianity  by  the  standard  of  Christianity  ;  we 
have  no  right  to  judge  any  man  by  our  own  standard. 
But  we  have  a  right  to  pronounce  him  a  false  man 
who  does  not  live  up  to  the  standard  he  himself  ac- 
knowledges. God  demands  this  of  every  man,  — 
Pagan  no  less  than  Christian,  —  that  he  shall  be  true 


SELECTIONS.  173 

to  his  own  felt  convictions  ;  that  he  shall  do  the  duty 
whose  obligation  he  clearly  sees.  The  law  of  prog- 
ress and  growth  is  written  on  man's  nature  and  con- 
stitution ;  and  progress  and  growth  can  only  follow 
from  fidelity  to  duty, — obedience  to  conscience. 
When,  then,  one  fails  to  obey  his  own  moral  sense, 
and  so  do  the  highest  and  best  thing  he  can  see  as 
obligatory  upon  him,  all  growth  must  cease.  Worse 
than  this,  the  soul  must  retrograde,  and  this  fearful 
penalty  must  follow.  The  duty  neglected  will  no 
longer  be  seen  clearly  as  a  duty.  The  conviction 
disobeyed  will  cease  to  be  a  conviction.  Gradually 
the  sense  and  conviction  of  duty  in  such  a  soul  will 
utterly  cease.  Conscience  will  die  out. 

The  second  feature  of  the  unpardonable  sin  — 
the  condition  of  hopeless  unbelief — is,  an  indiffer- 
ence to  truth.  Clearly  as  God  has  written  the  law 
of  progress  on  the  moral  nature  of  man,  has  he  im- 
pressed it,  also,  on  his  intellectual  nature.  The 
mind  seeks  knowledge,  as  the  soul  seeks  goodness, 
as  the  aliment  of  its  growth.  The  condition  of  a 
true  man  implies  that  he  is  always  seeking  higher 
truth.  But  if  he  will  not  receive  that  which  com- 
mends itself  to  his  reason  and  understanding,  be- 
cause it  conflicts  with  his  prejudices  or  condemns 
his  practice,  then  to  him  it  shall  cease  to  be  a  truth. 
From  the  moment  when  such  a  state  of  wilful  blind- 
ness begins,  no  more  light  shall  enter  that  mind. 
Such  a  person  has  excluded  the  truth,  —  has  shut 


174  SELECTIONS. 

the  door  and  barred  the  windows  against  her.  He 
has  closed  his  eyes,  and  refuses  to  see.  He  is  no 
longer  a  seeker  after  knowledge  or  truth,  and  can 
therefore  receive  none.  —  There  is  more  to  be 
said.  The  truth  he  has  will  go  away  from  him. 
That  which  he  saw  before  will  be  less  clearly  dis- 
cernible day  by  day.  Knowledge  will  lose  its  value, 
and  truth  her  royal  splendor,  in  his  esteem.  The 
result  will  be,  a  state  of  utter  indifference  to  all 
truth.  The  intellectual  faculty,  like  the  moral,  will 
be  lost.  Reason,  like  conscience,  will  die  out. 

The  third  feature  in  this  condition  of  mind  is,  that 
it  has  lost  all  love  of  that  which  is  holy,  and  all  ven- 
eration for  that  which  is  sacred.  The  native  admira- 
tion of  heroic  virtue  and  sublime  self-denial,  which 
God  implanted  in  every  soul,  it  has  smothered  and 
crushed.  It  acknowledges  nothing  as  venerable, 
it  bows  before  nothing  as  lofty,  it  reveres  nothing 
as  pure.  The  abounding  goodness  of  God  awakens 
no  grateful  piety.  The  self-devotion  of  human  love 
incites  to  no  genial  return.  It  laughs  at  affection, 
it  despises  truth,  it  mocks  at  piety  and  ridicules 
saintliness.  Far  from  prostrating  itself  before  the 
moral  nobility  of  Jesus,  it  treats  his  person  with 
deriding  scorn.  The  sublime  truths  he  declares  win 
it  to  no  obedient  homage,  but  only  provoke  a  bit- 
terer hate.  When  God  works  miracles  by  his  hand, 
it  turns  them  to  an  impious  blasphemy.  When  he 
hangs  bleeding  on  the  cross,  it  shakes  its  head  and 


SELECTIONS.  175 

points  its  finger  in  derision.  To  such  a  condition, 
where  conscience  is  silent,  and  reason  extinct,  and 
the  heart  callous,  what  moral  influence  can  bring 
salvation  ?  What  avenue  is  left  open  by  which  the 
renovating  power  of  religion  can  be  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  character  ?  It  has  lost  the  power  to  feel 
the  obligation  of  duty,  the  beauty  of  truth,  or  the 
divinity  of  love.  This  is  the  state  of  unpardonable 
sin.  What  shall  we  say  of  it  ?  What  but  the 
solemn  language  of  Jesus,  —  that  it  "hath  never 
forgiveness,  but  is  in  danger  of  eternal  damnation  "  ? 

Shall  we  venture  to  go  beyond  the  declaration  of 
Jesus,  and  believe  that,  at  last,  having  served  out 
the  time  of  its  punishment,  it  shall  be  driven  through 
suffering  to  fear,  and  through  fear  to  belief,  and 
through  belief  to  supplication  and  to  seeking,  and 
so,  at  last,  be  brought  to  penitence  and  pardon  ?  So, 
in  God's  mercy,  I  hope  and  trust.  But  Jesus  no- 
where affirms  it. 

And  what,  then,  is  the  practical  lesson  of  our  sub- 
ject ?  This,  —  the  danger  of  trifling  with  duty,  of 
resisting  truth,  of  hardening  the  heart  against  the 
appeals  that  are  continually  made  to  its  affection,  its 
piety,  and  its  reverence.  Every  faculty  unused  is 
lost.  The  unfaithful  soul  parts,  gradually,  with  con- 
science, reason,  and  reverence.  And  when  these 
are  gone,  what  is  there  left  to  save  it  ?  Conscience, 
which  should  have  sat  at  the  helm  to  guide  its  course 
over  the  perilous  ocean  of  time,  has  fallen  asleep  at 


176  SELECTIONS. 

its  post.  Reason,  the  pilot  of  its  voyage,  sits  with 
closed  eye,  and  is  blind  to  the  pole-star,  Truth, 
whose  steady  light  is  shining  in  the  heaven  over  the 
dark  waters.  The  heart,  which  God's  love  should 
rule,  and  his  wisdom  enlighten,  that  still,  like  the 
compass,  it  might  be  an  unerring  guide,  though  rea- 
son and  conscience  both  should  fail,  —  the  heart  has 
lost  its  reverence,  and  owns  no  homage  to  the  mag- 
net-sway of  that  great  central  Heart,  from  whose  in- 
finite fulness  flows  out  the  life  of  a  universe,  and  to 
whose  mighty  throbbings  all  loyal  hearts  respond  in 
the  pulsations  of  life  and  love.  The  needle  has 
rusted  to  its  pivot.  The  dead  heart  vibrates  not 
with  the  heart  of  God.  For  such  a  soul,  what  is 
there  left  to  save  it  ? 

There  is  a  solemn  truth  underlying  that  old  doc- 
trine of  the  Church,  that  a  man  might  sin  away  the 
day  of  grace,  —  might  resist  the  pleadings  of  God's 
spirit,  till,  grieved  and  angry,  it  should  depart  from 
him  for  ever.  Beyond  a  certain  point,  he  who 
stifles  conscience,  and  resists  truth,  and  crushes 
reverence,  shall  lose  them  all. 

And  so  we  are  prepared  to  understand  the  con- 
clusion of  that  touching  address  of  Christ,  —  "O, 
Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  thou  that  killest  the  prophets, 
and  stonest  them  that  are  sent  unto  thee,  how  often 
would  I  have  gathered  thy  children  together,  even 
as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under  her  wings, 
and  ye  would  not  !  Behold,  your  house  is  left  unto 


SELECTIONS.  177 

you  desolate.  And  now  I  go  my  way,  and  ye  shall 
seek  me,  and  shall  not  find  me," — shall  not  find 
me,  he  might  have  said,  not  because  I  am  far  off, 
but  because  of  your  own  moral  blindness,  that  can- 
not see  me,  —  because  of  your  inward  corruption, 
that  will  not  receive  me.  "  But  ye  shall  die  in  your 
sins," — the  divine  powers  God  gave  you  shall  die 
out,  because  of  your  falseness.  "  Ye  shall  not  see 
me  henceforth,  till  ye  shall  say,"  —  and  say  it  in  the 
anguish  of  your  hearts,  because  you  have  drunk  deep 
of  the  cup  of  iniquity,  and  have  tasted  the  bitterness 
of  its  dregs,  — ye  shall  see  no  Saviour  till  ye  shall 
say,  —  "  Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord  !  " 

January,  1848. 


12 


178  SELECTIONS. 


XIII. 

THOUGHT. 

A   HEART    SETTLED    UPON   A   THOUGHT    OF   WISDOM.  —  EccleS. 

xxii.  17. 

THOUGHT  and  Time  are  the  web  and  woof  of 
life,  and  the  woven  fabric  is  Eternity.  Without 
thought,  time  were  not,  nor  action,  nor  sense  of 
being.  Thought  is  consciousness,  and  what  we 
call  now  is  only  the  reflection  of  a  thought  upon  it- 
self. All  that  there  is  in  what  we  call  To-day,  is 
in  the  life  of  thought  :  thought  is  the  spirit's  breath. 
To  think  is  to  live  ;  for  he  who  thinks  not  has  no 
sense  of  life.  Wouldst  thou  make  the  most  of  life, 
—  wouldst  thou  have  the  joy  of  the  present, — let 
Thought's  invisible  shuttles  weave  full  in  the  loom 
of  time  the  moment's  passing  threads.  To  think  is 
to  live  ;  but  with  how  many  are  these  passing  hours 
as  so  many  loose  filaments,  never  woven  together 
nor  gathered,  but  scattered,  ravelling,  so  many  flying 
ends,  confused  and  worthless  !  Time  and  life,  un- 
filled with  thought,  are  useless,  unenjoyed,  —  bringing 
no  pleasure  for  the  present,  storing  no  good  for  fu- 
ture need.  To-day  is  the  golden  chance,  where- 


SELECTIONS.  179 

with  to  snatch  Thought's  blessed  fruition,  —  the  joy 
of  the  present,  the  hope  of  the  future.  Thought 
makes  the  time  that  is,  and  thought  the  eternity  to 
come. 

"  O  bright  presence  of  To-day,  let  me  wrestle  with  thee,  gra- 
cious angel, 

I  will  not  let  thee  go  except  thou  bless  me ;  bless  me,  then, 
To-day ; 

0  sweet  garden  of  To-day,  let  me  gather  of  thee,  precious 

Eden, 

1  have  stolen  bitter  knowledge,  give  me  fruits  of  life  To-day  ; 

0  true  temple  of  To-day,  let  me  worship  in  thee,  glorious 

Zion, 

1  find  none  other  place  nor  time  than  where -I  am  To-day  ; 

0  living  rescue  of  To-day,  let  me  run  into  thee,  ark  of  refuge, 

1  see  none  other  hope  nor  chance,  but  standeth  in  To-day  ; 

0  rich  banquet  of  To-day,  let  me  feast  upon   thee,  saving 

manna, 

1  have  none  other  food  nor  store  but  daily  bread  To-day." 

But  what  but  thought  maketh  To-day  ?  He  who 
thinks  not  has  murdered  To-day. 

Thought  is  Memory  ;  and  all  the  garnered  past 
is  but  the  picture  of  this  faithful  limner,  —  the  clear 
reflection  of  Thought's  magic  mirror.  The  Past,  — 
he  who  thinks  not  is  a  stranger  to  its  rich  and  fair 
domain.  It  lieth  behind  him,  a  cool,  still  grotto,  hung 
with  sparkling  gems,  and  gorgeous  with  marble  sculp- 
ture. Wouldst  thou  not  some  time  retreat  from  the 
dusty  street  and  the  noontide's  scorching  beam  ? 
Retire,  retire  with  Thought,  thy  better  angel,  to 
this  the  treasure-house  and  mausoleum  where  all  thy 


180  SELECTIONS. 

life  is  sacredly  embalmed.  Hast  thou  not  learned 
how  holy  is  the  place,  —  fragrant  with  the  breath  of 
other  days,  with  joys  long  fled,  and  childhood's 
morning  flowers  ?  Art  thou  poor  ?  Behold  here 
thy  good  deeds  laid  up,  an  incorruptible  treasure. 
Art  thou  alone  ?  Yet  here  the  light  of  other  days 
shall  shine  around  thee,  and  faces  thou  no  more  shalt 
greet  smile  oh  thee  as  of  old.  The  Past  is  thine. 
It  is  not  dead  to  thee.  Thou  hast  purchased  it  by 
labor  and  struggle,  by  love's  vow  and  sorrow's  tear. 
Enter  in  and  possess  it.  It  is  thine. 

But  hast  thou  not  made  Memory  thy  friend,  and 
shrinkest  from  the  Past,  because  the  Past  is  evil  ? 
Dare  not  to  shut  it  out,  for  the  time  is  coming  when 
thou  must  look  upon  it,  —  must  live  in  it.  Though 
few  remembrances  of  good  are  there,  and  spectres 
of  evil  thoughts  and  deeds  affright  thee  when  thou 
enterest,  yet  is  it  needful  for  thee  to  dwell  therein, 
and  learn  to  bear  the  sight.  'T  is  Heaven's  appoint- 
ed retribution.  Thinkest  thou  to  escape  it  ?  'T  is 
Heaven's  medicine  of  mercy  to  fright  thee  back  to 
virtue.  Refuse  it  not,  for  thy  welfare,  thy  salva- 
tion, is  in  it. 

And  what  is  anticipation,  what  is  hope,  what  is 
faith,  but  Thought  ?  When  the  past  is  chill  and 
lonely,  and  we  turn  from  its  twilight  remembrance 
and  its  shadowy  forms,  —  when  the  present  is  deso- 
late, and  duty  is  stern,  and  the  flesh  is  weak,  and  the 
burden  is  heavy,  and  the  dream  is  frightful,  —  cometh 


SELECTIONS.  181 

Thought's  angel  with  the  redemption  of  to-morrow's 
hope,  with  the  prophecy  of  better  to  come.  The 
cloud  is  dark  over  our  heads  ;  but  before,  in  our 
horizon,  the  sun  is  still  shining,  and  a  rainbow  be- 
girds it.  The  waves  overwhelm  us  ;  but  a  fairy  skiff 
with  a  gentle  pilot  is  sailing  towards  us,  and  still, 
when  sinking,  we  look  for  deliverance. 

"  The  painful  Present  is  comforted  by  the  Future, 
And  kind  To-morrow  beareth  half  the  burdens  of  To-day." 

Let  the  young  heart  of  wild  imaginings  curb  the 
^too  luxuriant  fancy,  that  it  be  not  deceived  by  a 
halo  ;  but  let  the  burdened  and  the  sorrowful  take 
counsel  of  anticipation,  and  remember  the  wisdom 
of  hope. 

Immortal  Thought,  how  vast  is  thy  domain  !  Thou 
givest  us  power  to  bring  the  mighty  orbs  of  heaven 
within  our  reach,  and  find  a  world  of  wisdom  in  an 
insect's  wing.  Thou  takest  us  up,  and  bearest  us 
away  to  distant  climes  and  distant  ages.  Through 
thee  we  hold  converse  with  prophets  and  wise  men 
of  old  time,  and  drink  in  the  sacred  lessons  of  the 
past.  We  soar  still  higher,  above  the  stars,  and 
even  to  God's  ancient  throne,  and  read  his  glory  and 
see  the  image  of  his  face.  We  learn  the  sweet  les- 
sons of  his  wondrous  love,  and  hold  communion  with 
his  spirit,  infinite  and  vast. 

The  obligation  to  think,  —  that  is  my  next  point. 
I  say  the  obligation  to  think,  for  thought  is  a  duty. 


182  SELECTIONS. 

Nor  let  it  be  supposed  that  it  is  a  duty  easily  dis- 
charged, or  one  that  may  be  left  to  take  care  of  it- 
self. It  may  indeed  be  true,  that,  in  our  waking 
hours,  the  mind  is  always  occupied  ;  but  we  are  all 
sensible  with  how  much  more  vigor,  and  to  how 
much  more  profit,  at  some  times  than  others.  But, 
wasteful  as  we  are  of  many  things,  of  what  else  are 
we  so  prodigal  as  of  time  and  thought,  the  most 
precious  of  all  ?  The  Koran  relates,  that  there  are 
angels  in  heaven,  who  think  as  much  in  half  an  hour 
as  we  do  in  a  thousand  years  ;  and  it  may  be  so, 
for  there  is  no  limit  to  the  rapidity  of  thought.  This 
much  is  certain,  that  he  lives  longest  who  thinks 
most  thoughts  ;  and  in  this  .sense  it  may  be  true, 
that  "the  child  shall  die,  a  hundred  years  old." 
And  do  not  a  large  proportion  of  the  ignorance,  the 
omissions,  and  the  sins  of  life  come  of  the  failure  to 
think  ?  Our  plans  are  not  matured,  and  so  they 
fail.  Our  resolutions  are  forgotten,  and  so  unfulfilled. 
The  whole  universe  of  God's  majestic  handiwork 
lies  around  us,  —  a  still  more  wondrous  universe  with- 
in ;  and  we  are  wellnigh  strangers  to  it  all.  The 
words  of  earth's  wise  and  gifted  ones  are  written 
out  for  us  ;  for  us  science  unfolds  its  mystic  lore  ; 
and  we  heed  not  their  lessons.  Great  and  high 
privileges  of  usefulness  and  progress  are  ours  ;  and 
we  do  not  use  them,  for  want  of  thought. 

It  is  not  only  a  man's  duty  to  think,  but  to  think 
about  the  right  things.     In  the  next  place,  then,  he 


SELECTIONS.  183 

must  have  habits  of  thought  ;  —  that  is,  he  must  have 
set  times  and  seasons  which  he  devotes  to  strong  and 
worthy  thought,  —  reflection  on  the  greatest  and 
highest  themes.  Unless  he  does  this,  he  must  fail 
of  all  vigorous  and  high  exercise  of  his  mental  pow- 
ers. His  mind  becomes  like  a  floating  chip  on  the 
river's  current,  with  which  every  circling  eddy  plays 
fast  and  loose,  —  the  merest  weather-vane,  which 
every  idle  wind  of  circumstance  may  blow  about  as 
it  will.  He  has  no  settled  opinions,  he  has  no 
fixed  principles.  Such  a  man's  life  must  fail  of  all 
high  ends.  Here  is  an  infinite  field  of  knowledge  ; 
and  it  ought  to  be  part  of  every  one's  plan  of  life  to 
make  daily  some  useful  acquisitions  in  it.  Here  are 
boundless  capacities  of  growth  ;  and  surely  it  should 
be  part  of  every  one's  ideal  to  make  daily  progress 
in  virtue  and  holiness.  Here  are  many  opportuni- 
ties of  usefulness,  —  the  sufferings  and  wants  of  our 
brethren  importuning  us  for  solace  and  alleviation  ; 
and  who  would  not  gladly  do  something  to  answer 
this  claim  ?  But  he  must  fail  of  wisdom,  of  prog- 
ress, and  of  usefulness,  who  does  not  think. 

But  is  a  man  responsible  for  his  thoughts,  then, 
and  to  what  extent  ?  To  this  question  I  reply, 
that  the  responsibility  for  our  thoughts  and  our  con- 
trol over  them  is  far  greater  than  is  generally  con- 
ceived. He  who  does  not  take  pains  to  fill  his  mind 
with  worthy  thoughts  may  well  expect  that  base  and 
wicked  ones  will  take  their  place.  The  field  un- 


184  SELECTIONS. 

watched  will  surely  be  sown  with  tares,  while  the 
owner  is  sleeping  ;  how  much  more,  if  it  be  not 
only  unwatched,  but  unsown!  Into  the  house  that  is 
left  unfurnished  and  empty  the  spirits  of  evil  will 
enter,  and  take  up  their  abode  there.  So  it  is  \vith 
a  man's  thoughts.  If  they  are  not  constrained  to 
pro6table  themes,  they  will  fix  upon  those  which  are 
contemptible  or  vile.  And  it  is  impossible  that  the 
thought  should  be  habitually  evil,  and  the  character 
remain  uncorrupted.  Can  a  man  touch  pitch  and 
not  be  defiled  therewith  ?  In  some  parts  of  our 
country  are  beds  of  coal,  formed  by  the  gradual  ac- 
cumulation of  leaves,  that  lie  now  preserved  in  solid 
mass,  with  every  tiny  line  and  fibre  perfect  and  un- 
changed. So  does  thought  petrify  into  character. 
Into  the  soul's  still  depths  fall  silently  the  leaves  of 
thought  ;  yet  in  a  coming  eternity  they  shall  all  be 
found  embalmed  there, — the  imperishable  chronicles 
of  the  spirit's  history  throughout  the  forming  life  of 
ages. 

And  beside,  every  action  has  its  root  and  begin- 
ning in  thought.  Long  before  the  evil  deed  is  com- 
mitted which  sets  the  seal  to  a  man's  character,  the 
thought  of  evil  has  become  habitual  to  him.  Watch 
narrowly  your  own  thoughts,  for  they  are  parents  of 
your  deeds,  good  or  evil.  Watch  your  own  thoughts. 
They  are  forewarning  messengers  to  put  you  on 
your  guard  against  coming  temptation,  —  the  dark 
clouds,  preshadowing  the  gathering  tempest.  I 


SELECTIONS.  185 

know  that  a  bad  thought  does  not  of  necessity  imply 
guilt  in  the  thinker. 

"  Evil  into  the  mind  of  man 
May  come  and  go,  so  unapproved,  and  leave 
No  spot  or  blame  behind." 

But  it  must  not  only  be  unbidden  and  unapproved, 
—  it  must  be  resisted  and  driven  out.  When  Eve's 
ear  was  won  to  listen  to  the  seducing  voice  of  the 
serpent,  the  tempter's  victory  was  wellnigh  gained. 
He  who  parleys  with  an  evil  thought  will  ere  long 
give  it  full  and  free  possession  of  his  heart,  and  then 
the  evil  deed  is  not  far  off. 

If  you  would  know  yourself,  your  real  conditions 
and  tendencies,  watch  well  what  thoughts  they  are 
that  come  up  most  naturally  and  readily  when  your 
mind  is  free  from  its  habitual  engrossments,  and  left 
to  fall  back  upon  itself.  What  guests  plead  most 
for  entrance  then,  and  find  most  ready  welcome  ? 
The  knowledge  of  this  single  point  will  shed  a  flood 
of  light  upon  your  character.  What  thoughts  are 
they,  my  brother,  that  most  frequently  come  up  in 
your  leisure  and  unoccupied  moments  ?  Does  some 
scheme  of  aggrandizement,  some  vision  of  wealth,  fill 
up  these  interstices  ?  Are  your  thoughts  of  gain,  of 
hoards,  of  luxurious  ease  and  splendid  show  ?  Be- 
ware, beware  !  for  Mammon  is  clutching  at  your 
heart,  stealthily  sapping  the  foundation  of  your 
principles  and  paralyzing  your  best  affections,  and 


186 


SELECTIONS. 


robbing  your  soul  of  its  noblest  aspirations  and  its 
better  portion. 

Or  is  it  the  wild  dreamings  of  youthful  passion,  — 
the  temptings  of  voluptuous  imagining,  —  that  crowd 
upon  the  mind  released  from  constraint  ?  In  God's 
name  take  heed  to  thyself,  then,  for  the  demon  of 
sensuality  is  luring  thee  to  destruction.  Thou  art 
fostering  a  serpent  in  thy  bosom  that  shall  wind  its 
scaly  folds  about  thine  heart,  to  crush  all  purity  and 
nobleness  out  of  it.  Give  not  thyself  up  to  the  most 
loathsome  of  all  the  spirits  of  evil,  that  he  should 
enter  in  to  possess  thy  soul,  —  to  hold  mad  riot's 
rule  awhile,  and  leave  a  wreck  of  shame. 

A  thought  ends  in  a  habit,  and  habit  fastens  its 
chains  resistlessly  upon  us.  He  who  is  wise  will 
crush  the  thought  in  its  weakness,  and  not  nurse  and 
foster  it  into  an  enemy  he  cannot  subdue.  For  a 
bad  thought  cannot  be  annihilated,  any  more  than  the 
soul  into  which  it  enters.  It  has  been  there,  and 
has  left  its  footprint ;  and  if  we  have  not  driven  it 
out,  it  will  come  again.  And  who  can  measure  the 
influence  of  an  evil  thought  ?  If  it  come  often,  it 
will  mould  the  character  to  its  likeness  ;  yea,  it  will 
write  itself  upon  the  countenance,  so  that,  though 
the  deed  it  leads  to  may  be  kept  secret,  or  remain 
uncommitted,  yet  men  shall  read  its  handwriting  on 
the  face,  and  turn  away  from  him  who  cherishes  it, 
they  know  not  why.  Let  no  man  think  he  can  es- 
cape the  contagion  or  the  consequences  of  an  evil 


SELECTIONS.  187 

thought.  It  will  cling  to  him  like  his  shadow.  It 
will  reveal  itself  in  careless  speech,  or  in  some  un- 
conscious look  and  gesture.  It  will  set  its  seal  upon 
the  whole  man,  and  go  to  fix  his  reputation  in  the 
world.  It  will  confirm  its  dominion  over  him  till 
he  is  its  victim  and  its  slave. 

A  single  thought  of  evil,  —  it  will  eat  the  heart 
like  a  gangrene  till  all  its  soundness  and  purity  are 
gone,  and  nothing  but  corruption  is  left.  It  is  a 
consuming  fire,  whose  relentless  heat  burns  unap- 
peased  till  all  has  crumbled  to  ashes.  The  world 
is  full  of  such  warning  wrecks. 

So  have  I  seen  a  fair  spring  bud,  that  swelled  with 
promise  in  morning's  dew  and  sunshine  ;  but  when  I 
looked,  at  evening,  it  had  withered,  for  a  worm  was 
consuming  it  within. 

So  have  I  heard  of  a  noble  vessel,  that  had  out- 
ridden many  a  storm,  but  in  the  calm  stillness  of 
a  summer  sea  sank  down  beneath  the  engulphing 
waves.  There  was  an  unsound  plank,  and  the  leak, 
unobserved  till  the  moment  of  danger,  could  not  be 
stopped  then.  So  is  an  evil  thought  in  a  man's 
heart. 

But  a  wise,  a  good  thought,  —  who  can  tell  its 
power  ?  It  fills  and  satisfies  the  soul.  It  shines  out 
in  the  countenance.  It  speaks  from  the  lips.  It 
goes  kindling  from  heart  to  heart,  and  the  strain  of 
its  music  goes  round  the  world. 

There  will  be  some  ruling  principle,  some  lead- 


188  SELECTIONS. 

ing  thought,  in  every  man's  mind.  It  will  be  the  aim 
of  the  life,  the  key-stone  to  the  whole  character. 
And  what  shall  that  thought  be  ? 

But  one  thing  is  fit  to  be  such  a  ruling  and  central 
principle.  But  one  thing  is  worthy  to  be  an  aim  of 
life  to  a  reasonable  and  immortal  being.  It  is  "a 
heart  settled  upon  a  thought  of  wisdom,"  —  a  heart 
and  a  life  consecrated  to  God,  to  truth,  to  spirit- 
ual things. 

Till  thou  hast  found  this  thou  art  not  living  the 
life  of  a  man,  but  of  a  beast.  'T  is  as  if  a  bird  should 
forego  his  wings,  —  as  if  the  sun  should  renounce 
his  light. 

This  is  the  crown  of  thy  manliness,  the  seal  of  thy 
nobility,  the  talisman  of  thy  peace.  Come,  if  thou 
hast  not  done  it,  and  pledge  thy  life  to  truth  and  ho- 
liness and  love.  Come,  kindle  on  thy  heart's  altar 
the  flame  of  a  consecrating  purpose.  Come,  fix  thy 
heart  upon  a  thought  of  wisdom,  and  bend  thy  no- 
blest energies  to  the  service  of  Almighty  God  and 
his  law  written  on  thy  heart. 

Then  round  this  living  principle  shall  all  pure 
thoughts,  as  round  a  central  crystal,  arrange  them- 
selves in  fair  and  perfect  symmetry.  A  new  and 
higher  wisdom  shall  inspire  thee  ;  for  the  heart 
sends  tides  of  life  to  the  head.  New  light  shall  shine 
upon  thee,  and  thine  eye  shall  see  truths  unperceiv- 
ed  before  ;  for  the  pure  in  heart  see  God  and  all 
things.  New  peace  shall  be  thine,  and  holy  hopes, 


SELECTIONS.  189 

and  a  sense  of  greatness  and  dignity  hitherto  unrec- 
ognized shall  pervade  thy  being.  Life  shall  be  en- 
nobled, and  a  high  and  divine  mission  set  before 
thee.  And  this  kindling  thought  shall  shine  out  in 
thy  life,  shedding  beauty  and  healing  upon  others' 
pathway.  It  shall  write  itself  in  lines  of  inspiration 
on  thy  forehead,  as  on  the  face  of  Jesus  glowed  the 
light  of  God's  love.  It  shall  dwell  within  thee, 
a  sanctifying  light,  to  purify  thy  heart  from  every 
stain  of  evil,  and  fill  it  with  heaven's  exceeding 
peace. 

In  the  darkness  of  night,  the  cloud-begirt  earth 
seems  to  lie  dumb  in  the  awful  gloom.  The  birds 
hush  their  song,  and  hide  themselves  in  the  leafy 
covert.  The  shrinking  flowers  close  their  delicate 
petals,  and  the  verdure  and  the  beauty  of  the  land- 
scape is  changed  to  a  funeral  pall. 

But  mark  how  the  first  beams  of  day  dispel  the 
darkness,  and  create  all  things  anew.  The  flowers 
open  at  the  gentle  touch  of  the  sunbeam,  and  shed 
their  fragrance  on  the  grateful  air.  The  birds  wake 
their  jubilant  song,  the  tree-tops  wave  in  the  morn- 
ing breeze,  the  dewy  grass-tips  glisten  in  the  light, 
and  the  wide  landscape  smiles  a  welcome  to  the  king 
of  day.  So  is  the  light  of  a  religious  purpose  in  the 
heart. 

My  brother,  have  you  not  found  the  true  end  of 
life  ?  Are  you  still  dissatisfied,  and  looking  to  some 
anticipated  good  the  future  shall  bring  ?  Be  sure  the 


190  SELECTIONS. 

good  you  seek  lies  in  this  alone,  — the  consecration 
of  yourself  to  God  and  duty.  This  is  your  want 
if  you  have  it  not,  —  your  exceeding  blessedness 
if  you  have,  —  a  heart  settled  upon  a  thought  of 
wisdom. 

June,  1846. 


THE    END. 


UCSB   LIBRARY 


A  ™iiiiiiiiiiii 


